The Comedy of Humours

Dramatic genre inspired by the medieval medical theory of humours

humours (ancients) = bodily fluids that permeated body & influenced its health/ personality

balance - a determining factor of human health – eucrasiaimbalance – directly caused diseases - dyscrasia

"temperament" - Galen bodily dispositions (susceptibility to particular diseases) psychlogical dispositions, behavioural and emotional inclinations

balanced mixture of the four qualities >> ideal temperament

predominance of each of these 4 secretions within the body (earth, air, fire, and water) >> specific temperament

blood 'sanguine'

phlegm 'phlegmatic'

choler (or yellow bile) 'choleric'

black bile 'melancholic'

c. 400 B.C.

Hippocrates's four humours

yellow bile

black bile

phlegm blood

season summer autumn winter spring

element fire earth water air

organ liver brain/lungs gall bladder spleen

quality dry & hot dry & cold wet & cold wet & hot

characteristic easily angered, bad tempered

despondent, sleepless, irritable

calm, unemotional

courageous, hopeful, amorous

c. 325 B.C.

Aristotle's four sources of happiness

hedone (sensuous pleasure)

propraitari (acquiring assets)

ethikos (moral virtue)

dialogike (logical investigation)

c. 190 A.D.'

Galen's four temperaments

choleric melancholic phlegmatic sanguine

Paracelsus's four totem spirits

changeable salamanders

industrious gnomes

inspired nymphs

curious

sylphs

Comedies of humour vehicles for satire popularised in England in 1598 by Ben Jonson’s Every Man in His Humour

• portrayal of the follies & vices of society• individual eccentricities of characters - distorted temperaments

characters’ natures = source of the action• stock characters (stereotypes) - humours out of balance

the miles gloriosus – swaggering warrior the senex iratus – angry father the dolosus servus – crafty servant the greedy miser the foolish spendthrift the jealous husband, etc.

people - ruled by single passions (greed / anger / self-righteousness)pretensions to abilities (wit / learning / fashion / social prestige)

Ben Jonson, c. 1573—1637

Baroque artist  more than 35 masques and entertainments & 14 complete comedies - extraordinarily varied - satires, comedies of manners, comedies of humours and farces

• experimented with approach, point of view, characterization, language & plotting 

establish drama as a legitimate literary form - raise the status of his art  (not mere acting vehicles)

1616 The Workes of Benjamin Jonson (collection of his plays, masques & poems - printed in folio)

• first English dramatist to publish collected edition of his own works

• right of plays to be considered as literature - promoted the cause of drama as high art

Literary career bestrode the Stuart drama world as a prime playwright and as a theorist - greatest of Shakespeare's dramatic contemporaries

• low birth (son of a Scottish minister)• formidable learning - Westminster School - studied with William

Camden (perhaps the greatest classicist and antiquarian of the Elizabethan and Jacobean ages - interest in classical & English languages & literatures, care in constructing what he wrote, and respect for learning)

• bricklayer and soldier• travelling actor (performed as Hieronimo in Thomas Kyd’s The

Spanish Tragedy)• Twice imprisoned

1597 - partial authorship of The Isle of Dogs (politically subversive) 1598 - killed Gabriel Spencer, a fellow actor, in a duel - capital offence

- pled “benefit of clergy” (able to recite a biblical verse in Latin)  

dramatist as well as a masterful poet

dedicated classicist, emphasized clarity of form and phrase over expression of emotion

studied the poetic forms of classical Greek and Latin literature & of later European literature

diverse body of poetry

elegies, epistles, homilies, Pindaric odes, epigrams, love-poems, epitaphs

collected his poems - Epigrams (1616), The Forest (1616), & The Underwood (1640–1641)

1597 - Theatrical career translator (Ars poetica)Horatian dictum- poetry should entertain & instruct the audience

1. INSTRUCTstrong satirical bent - didacticismaim of comedy = expose vices and follies which weaken society & disrupt the web of human relationships necessary to a commonwealthindividual failings + failures of the age (foolishness, greed, pretentiousness, hypocrisy, self-deception)major function of comedy = moral edification (shame them out of their vices and follies)

2. ENTERTAIN   rigid moralist ( preach)

comedy’s primary responsibility = amuse - e.g. Prologue to Volpone:"In all his poemes, still, hath been this measure, / To mixe profit, with your pleasure" most effective way to teach through art = clothe the lesson in a delightful fableJonson’s concern with entertaining makes most of his comedies delightful and attractive to audiences; his effort to instruct makes his plays substantial and meaningful

Neoclassicism of Jonson's comedies

adapts classical ideals to contemporary materialclassical unities of time, place, & action + sense of decorum

internal unity and coherence

disciplined structure, concentrated action, and serious purpose

characters & situations = carefully integrated - fabric of the whole play

loose ends are resolved, subplot and main plot are interwoven so that each enhances the other, and the conclusion of each play resolves the basic issues brought up during the action

Every Man in His Humour (1598) • applies the classical theory of the humours to social behaviour • complex interweaving of plots - atmosphere of comic frenzy• fools are duped, husbands fear cuckolding, wives suspect their

husbands of having mistresses, fathers spy on sons, a servant plays tricks on everyone, and myriad disguises and social games confuse the characters

character typology • suspicious father (Edward Knowell) • errant son (Edward Knowell) • soldier (Bobadill) - the miles gloriosus from classical comedies • wily servant (Brainworm) • Downright - shatterer of illusions• would-be poet (Matthew), gull (Stephen)• Kitely, Dame Kitely, Cob and Tib - reflect the ridiculousness of the

behavior of the main characters

Every Man Out Of his Humour (1599)

expounds his theories of drama - how humours govern character

both plays = comedies of correction (by the end of the plays - taken 'out of their humour‘) - ridiculed or shocked, cured into realizing their folly

satiric targets • sins--pride, luxury, ambition and greed, moral idiocy,

deception, self-deception, vanity and disguise the real self

• replacement of spiritual ideals with materialistic ones

turned to satire – 1601: Cynthia’s Revels ; The Poetaster

• strongly criticized life at court

• targeted fellow playwrights Thomas Dekker & John Marston (had also attacked Jonson in the so-called War of the Theatres)

  1603 - 2 classical historical dramas / tragedies (accurate re-creations of Roman life)

Sejanus His Fall failure – lack of action & great number of similar characters

Catiline studies - effects of ambition, corruption and power-lust in the State

characters - powerfully & clearly drawn, but verbose & static

classical background - closely follows Latin models - subject matter & style

firm dramatic footing - great triumph - Volpone: Or, The Fox - premiered in 1605

• straightforward moral judgment: the evil (vice, deceit and greed) one commits brings with it a suitable punishment

• comedy of humours - subplot

• characters in the grip of obsessions (love / money)

• farcical build-up of the --- climax of deceit and trickery

Epicoene (1609)

The Alchemist (1610)

Bartholomew Fair (1614)plays written after Bartholomew Fair – dismissed - “dotages” (by John Dryden): The Devil Is an Ass, The Staple of News, A Tale of a Tub (1633)

Volpone, or The Fox

(1605)

Venetian magnifico - Volpone ("fox") - imminent death (feigns gout, catarrh, palsy, and consumption - no heirs) - mental agility and showmanship

accomplice, Mosca (fly) - convinces each victim that he is favored above all others in Volpone’s will - delight in perpetrating perversities - malicious and witty parasite - frequent instigator of additional pranks, keeps the plot moving

three birds of prey stumble over one another in their haste to devour the supposed carcass - Mosca and Volpone simply bring out the worst in them; they do not plant it

lawyer Voltore (the vulture, ruthless and voracious scavenger)

elderly Corbaccio (the crow, aged miser, feeble, deaf, pathologically greedy)

merchant and husband of Celia, Corvino (the raven, insanely jealous of his beautiful wife, greed - sufficient to counteract his jealousy)

Volpone’s gold-centered world - victims include innocents Bonario, disinherited by his father heavenly Celia, Corvino’s virtuous wife, faces her slander and perils

with noble fortitude

underlying the gold-centered world is uglinessunder Volpone’s dashing personality is bestialityunder Mosca’s wit is spiritual paucity

• Volpone - pretends to be physically degenerated, yet the pretense mirrors the spiritual reality - his performance becomes more extreme; eventually, he pretends to be nearly a corpse - trapped in his world of gold

his feigned physical degeneration emerges in his spiritual self, and he is doomed

gold turns the world upside down• a husband gives his wife to another man• a father displaces his son• the just are made to look false• a servant becomes master

Volpone becomes enamoured of his own ability to scheme

voluptuous nature - lust for Celia, Corvino’s virtuous young wife - attempted rape - play's first catastropheaverts public exposure - high opinion of his cleverness soars - opportunity for the parasite Mosca to seize his fortune - rivalry of master and servant - second and complete catastrophe

Performance versus reality Volpone - near-rape of Celia - ensuing trial - presented to the court as a nearly dead old man

Voltore - public mask of respectability

Corbaccio - acts the part of the kindly old gentleman

Corvino plays the honest merchant• Volpone’s exuberant exterior of covers a decayed spirit

• the public personalities of Corbaccio, Corvino, and Voltore belie their evil

in a world in which gold is of paramount importance, such people can seem good

likewise, the truly honest and chaste Bonario and Celia can be made to seem conniving, greedy, and concupiscent

ending • reveals the falseness in the principal characters

• lays bare the emptiness of Volpone’s world

Sources Petronius’ Satiricon & Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead plot of Volpone = based on a Roman fortune-hunting theme (Horace, Juvenal, Pliny, Lucian, and Petronius)Volpone's Venice = a city of dissemblers o       pretend to infirmity in order to attract gifts o       feign friendship and generosity in order to attract inheritancesthe tale of Eumolpos - shipwrecked wayfarer - gets rich in a foreign land - poses as a childless old man - speaks only of his wealth - rewrites his testament between fits of coughing

medieval beast fable - tale of the death-feigning fox mythological substructure of the playo       Latin bestiary - 12th century - recounts a version of the tale of the hungry fox who besmears himself with red mud to resemble blood - lies on his back holding his breath in order to attract carrion birds - grabs and devours primordial trickster - audacious cunning fox - portrayal of greed in contemporary society

Double plot

Aristotelian unities of time, place, and actiononly one day (the unity of time)entirely in contemporary Venice (place)

• city's dual nature both a city of great beauty, prominent reputation for art and

wealth city of sin, extensive population of courtesans - lust associated

with excessive sexual freedom

action unified structurally - centred on the machinations of Volpone, his follower, and the greedy dupes - (exception - Peregrine and Sir Politic Would-Be)

Subplotcomedy of humours in miniature - ameliorate the tension of the major plot

expatriate English couple, humour characters (pretenders to that which they do not have)

• Sir Politic Would-Be – gullible, naïve traveller, eager to be thought a member of the inner circle of state knowledge, ridiculous English tourist on the Continent, full of assumed dignity, self-importance

• Lady Politic Would-Be , shallow-brained Englishwoman - beauty, intelligence, and fashion - ridiculousness - havoc she wreaks on her mother tongue

Peregrine sophisticated traveller, amusement & contempt - credulities and foibles of Sir Politic

  structural contrast• Sir Politic Would-be - innocence of the Englishman abroad• juxtaposed with the duplicity - Venetian men     

Volpone's opening speech

Good morning to the day; and next, my gold! Open the shrine, that I may see my saint. . . .Hail the world's soul, and mine! More glad than isThe teeming earth to see the long'd-for sunPeep through the horns of the celestial Ram,Am I, to view thy splendour darkening his;That lying here, amongst my other hoards,Show'st like a flame by night; or like the dayStruck out of chaos, when all darkness fledUnto the centre . . .

religious imagery (saint, adoration, & soul) > something irreligious & mean - perversion of religious images

1. Christian & humanistic values • exalts the eternal over the temporal

• the spiritual over the worldly

2. debased world in which these values are reversed• disproportion, transvaluation of values

• main pursuit of men = acquisition of riches

Volpone's morning hymn -- new metaphysic and a new ethic = point for point the reverse of the Christian

Gold = new god, the world's soul, and its own saint

Imitationimportant theme - distortion of normal realitycharacters - constantly assuming either literal or figurative disguises

• Sir Politic Would-Be seeks to imitate Volpone, an imitation of a dying man

• Mosca - ability to make what his dupes see before their eyes conform to whatever fabrication he has led them to accept

• Lady Would-Be - cover her mental deformities with physical cosmetics

• Volpone pretends to be a mountebank - foxlike trickery, delights in acting, both onstage and off fooling others, disguises, makeup, & changes of voice

How one can distinguish between a real imitator and an imitation imitator?

T. S. Eliot - "No theory of humours could account for Jonson's best plays"

Northrop Frye - Volpone "is exceptional in being a kind of comic imitation of a tragedy, with the point of Volpone's hybris carefully marked"