Ben Jonson : Comedy of Humours, Tragedies and Masques / Comedy of Humours and Ben Jonson
Anushua Chatterjee
Comedy of Humours :
“ … . So in every human body
The choler, melancholy, phlegm and blood,
By reason that they flow continually
In some one part, and are not continent,
Receive the name of Humours.”
Ben Jonson in his Induction to Every Man Out of His Humour talks about the four kinds of humours ,governing the body and a peculiar quality may so possess a person that contributes in the formation of his/her individual disposition, that is, to make him or her act in one way or the other. Ben Jonson based his comedies on the ancient psychological theory of four humours that were held to be the four primary fluids___ blood, phlegm, yellow bile or choler and black bile or melancholy. If proportionately balanced, these humours were thought to give an individual a sound mind and a healthy physique. But an imbalance of one or another humour in a temperament was said to produce four kinds of dispositions___ Sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric and melancholic. Jonson's characters used to possess a certain preponderant humour that gives him an eccentricity of disposition and therefore, the characters became stock type and their names do resonate with their characteristic distortion, for example, “Knowell”, “Brainworm”, “Dame Purecraft”, “Wellbred” etc.
This genre of comedy may be traced back in the works of Aristophanes, but Ben Jonson and George Chapman popularized the genre towards the end of the sixteenth century. The perception of "humour" comes from the ancient Greek physicians and, later, from the medieval system of medicine that envisaged a correspondence of four humours with the four elements of fire, air, earth and water that respectively possess the quality of heat, cold, dryness and moisture. Apart from its currency in the ancient Greek and medieval profession, the perception of humour was still a matter of valid understanding even during the time of Ben Jonson. His contemporaries conceived the word for any passing mood, whim,fancy, or caprice and used it accordingly. For example, in The Merchant of Venice, when Shylock is asked why he prefers a pound of the flesh
to the sum of three thousand ducats, he replied, “It is my humour” indicating the caprice of Shylock. But, Ben Jonson was more in alignment with the ancient theories and used it to demonstrate certain predominant peculiarities of dispositions.
The characteristic aspects of the Comedy of Humours
Comedy of humours is didactic in purpose and used to preach the ideals of a moral conduct by provoking laughter at the expense of the eccentric characters.
These genre of comedy usually is satiric in tone that seeks to satirize the follies and foibles, the eccentricities and incongruities of the society, as Ben Jonson himself said, in the introduction to "Every Man Out of His Humour" that
“I'll strip the ragged follies of the time
Naked as at their birth” thus ascertaining his purpose to represent his comedies as social satire with the purpose to reform society as once Theophrastus sought to mend the manners of men.
Ben Jonson set his comedies free from the extravagances of the romantic comedies with idealized characters, imaginary settings, fun and an overall mood of joviality. Instead, his comedies, because of its satirical intent, used to portray the stark realism of contemporary society with all its moral bruises.
The characters, in the comedy of humours are stock type, representing certain characteristic distortion and are named accordingly. These characters are the caricatures of the fop, the blusterer Or the jealous husband, and not a fully realized human being.
As far as the setting is concerned, Comedy of Humours are generally set in London, especially in the plays of Johnson whose real interest was to satirize the life and manners of London society.
Comedy of humours strictly adheres to the three unities of time, place and action. For example, in Jonson’s The Alchemist, all the incidents take place inside Lovewit’s house or in front of its door and the unity of time is maintained within the twenty four hours of the day. The classical canon of comedy of homours has a single plot and there comic and tragic elements do not overlap each other.
Jonsonian Comedy of Humours
Every Man in His Humour (1598) : First notable work of Jonson. Though initially set in Italy, but eventually the scene changed to London. This play is written in colloquial prose except the expository passages and scenes. In the Prologue, Jonson attacked both the manners and matters of the contemporary dramas and confirmed non nonconformity to it by saying he will not “serve the ill customs of the age” . This play is also written as a comedy of intrigue in the model of the Roman comedies of Plautus and Terence, though retaining his originality in tone. The plot of the play deals with the tricks played by Brainworm (the servant of Young Knowell) and Young Wellbred ( the brother-in-law of Kitely) upon both elder Knowell and Kitely, the jealous husband. Their trickery brought Kitely and his wife face to face at Cobb's House where each suspects the other has come for meeting his or her lover. However, the play ends up in happy reconciliation and mirth with the intervention of the shrewd and kind Justice Clement who cleared all the misunderstandings. The exposed Bobadill, the greatest of Johnson's comic characters, is beaten eventually.
The note of happy ending is obtained through the marriage of Young Knowell and Kitely's sister.
Every Man Out of His Humour( 1599) :
A satire about pompous language and pretensions, Jonson intended Every Man Out of His Humour as a sequel to build on the previous play's success but it failed to match the popularity. Though the names of the characters are Italian, but this top is a London play with full glimpses of London's moral ambience,acted in 1599 by the Lord Chamberlain's Men.
The action of the play is designed to exhibit how each of the characters,plagued by a particular humour eventually overcomes his personal disorder. In the Folio Edition of Jonson's Works, each character is described with an introductory note and are named as per their individual foibles. For instance, Carlo Buffone is a “scurrilous and profane jester”, Puntarvolo is a Vainglorious Knight who ridiculously insured thd safe return of his pets from a voyage to Constantinople. Fastidious Brisk is a courtier who wears fashionable clothes and practices by his glass how to salute; Sordido has his recreation in reading almanacs and foul weather, Sogliardo, the brother of Sordio , is a clown, enamoured of the name of a gentleman. Funoso, the son of Sordido, is student who follows the far off fashion like a spy. Delirio is a foolish husband. Jonson, introducing himself as Asper, explains and comments on the action in his conversation with his fellow friends Cordatus and Mitis, who serve as the choric characters.
Every Man Out contains an allusion to John Marston's Histriomastix in Act III, scene i, in which the clown character Clove speaks "fustian" in mimicry of Marston's style.The characters Fastidious Brisk and Carlo Buffone are representations of Marston and Thomas Dekker.
Cynthia's Revels, Or, The Fountain of Self-Love (1600): This play is a satire upon the contemporary gallantry using mythological characters. This play tributes the aged Queen through the character of Cynthia and portrays himself as Criticus, or, Crites, who receives Queen's appreciation for his poetry and wisdom and takes the charge to purge the society with his companion Arete or Virtue, whom he deliberately chooses for this task. This play was performed by the boys of the Queen’s Chapel. The play was one element in the Poetomachia or War of the Theatres between Jonson and rival playwrights John Marston and Thomas Dekker.
Actaeon in the play may represent Robert Devereux, the second Earl of Essex, while Cynthia's lady in waiting Arete may resonate with Lucy, Countess of Bedford, one of Elizabeth's ladies in waiting as well as Jonson's patroness.
The Poetaster( 1601) : Set in Augustan Rome, in the court of Augustus Caesar, The Poetaster is a vindictive satire on the poetic rivals of Jonson, especially Marston and Dekkar who are satirically represented as Crispinus and Demetrius.
The plot centers around a conspiracy of Crispinus and Demetrius, instigated by Tucca to defame Horace( as Jonson represents himself) but eventually they fail and Crispinus is administered to purge which causes him to vomit up a prodigious vocabulary. Virgil, Ovid, Propertius and Tibullus are also introduced and Ovid's famous encounter with a bore, recorded in Book I of Sermones has satirically turned into an encounter with Crispinus, a representation of Marston.
This play is a part of the Poetomachia or War of the Theatres between Jonson and rival playwrights John Marston and Thomas Dekker and was written to answer Marston's Histriomastix. Jonson came up as a true Renaissance Classical Humanist in his learned reference to Latin literature and identifying himself with the Principal figure of the Golden Age of Latin Literature.
Volpone, or The Fox (1605) : Volpone is an exposure of the human greed and meanness that morally degrades a man. Set in Renaissance Italy, and resonating with London, the plot revolves around the rich, avaricious , childless Volpone and his servant Mosca's plan to extract expensive gifts from the relatives by rumouring the impending death of Volpone and the matter of choosing his heir. This resulted in visits of the relatives with rich presents and were induced by Mosca to cultivate their hope of being Volpone’s heir to the extent that Corbaccio disinherited his son and named Volpone his heir and Corvino sacrifices his wife Celia to Volpone to be the latter's heir. But, to extract more fun out of the bizarre, Volpone pretended to be dead and decided his servant Mosca to be his heir. But, the lawyer Voltore who aided Volpone and Mosca in the infamous conspiracy against Celia, exposed their plans as he was deprived of his proposed share. Eventually this led to the deserved punishment of Volpone, Mosca and Corvino.
This play represents the animals through the names and characteristics of each of the characters such as Volpone is the fox; Voltore, the vulture , Corvino, the raven, Corbaccio, the crow, etc.
Epicoene, or The Silent Woman (1609) :
The farcical plot of the play revolves around the entrapping of Morose by his nephew Sir Dauphine Engenie whom the former suspects to laugh at him for his preference to silence and arranges for him a silent bride Epicoene with the help of his barbar Cutbread. But eventually it is discovered that Epicoene is an incessant talker and to celebrate the bridal arrive the friends of his nephew and ‘collegiate ladies’ that turns his house into a marketplace to his utter dismay. This, at last, makes him accept his nephew's offer to get him rid of Epicoene for five hundred pounds a year and the reversion of his property. After this successful negotiation, Sir Dauphine Engenie removes his Epicone wig and reveals her identity as a boy to gull his uncle.
The Alchemist (1609) : Set in London, this satiric comedy displays a great variety of human weakness and hypocrisy. During an epidemic of Plague in London a gentleman named Lovewit flees to the country leaving his house under the sole charge of his butler, Jeremy who transforms the house into a nest of fraudulent acts and names him “Captain Face”, and brings Subtle, a quack alchemist and Doll Common, a prostitute. The trio tricksters then raises money from the gullible greedy that includes the tobacco merchant Drugger; the lawyer's clerk, Dapper; the ambitious and sensual Sir Epicure Mammon; Tribulation Wholesome and Ananias, two Puritan brethren of Amsterdam through them Jonson cast his satire upon the Puritan hypocrisy and absurdity; Kastril, a quarrelsome lad and his widow sister Dame Pliant. But the unexpected return of Lovewit puts an end to their fraudulent business. Since Lovewit is fond of jest, so, Face makes peace with his master, but Subtle and Doll Common meet some retribution at last.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge believed that it had one of the three most perfect plots in literature along with Sophocles’ Oedipus, the King and Fielding’s Tom Jones.
Barthalomew Fair (1614) : The play is set during Bartholomew Fair which took place in Smithfield, London, in August every year, began as a site for commerce but quickly evolved into an occasion for social interaction. As an experimental metadrama, this play of Jonson set in the one day of fair life representing an unusually detailed panorama of early seventeenth-century London life with pickpockets and bullies to justices and slumming gallants.
The play begins with Littlewit , a proctor and amateur dramatist and his friends, Quarlous and Winwife and their plotting to win Dame Purecraft, a rich widow, and Littlewit's mother-in-law, from the hypocritical Puritan Zeal-of-the-Land Busy. Cokes, the foolish squire too visits the fair along with his future wife Grace Wellborn and his servant Waspe. But in the fair he was eventually robbed of his purse, cloak, sword,and his future wife whom he wants to marry against her will. Justice Overdo, well-read in the "disguised prince" tradition, assumes a disguise to find out the criminality in the fair, is beaten by Waspe, falsely accused by the cut-purse Edgeworth and put in the stocks for punishment. Waspe, too, is put in the stocks for fighting. Winwife has abandoned his plan to marry Dame Purecraft and instead, he and Quarlous fight for Grace's hand. Zeal-of-the-land Busy is arrested for preaching without license and put into the stocks too. The climax of the play occurs at the puppet show when Quarlous, disguised himself as Trouble-All, stole the marriage license from Winwife and made it into a license for himself and Purecraft. The puppet show, a burlesque of Hero and Leander and Damon and Pythias is interrupted by Busy claiming that the play is disgusting as the actors are cross-dressed. At the end, Justice Overdo reveals himself, and uncovers the "enormities" he has witnessed at the fair and to punish accordingly but, with the advice of Overdo forgives all parties. The play ends with Winwife's marriage with Grace, and Quarlous’ marriage with Purecraft.
The Devil Is an Ass (1616) : The Devil is an Ass was first performed by the King's Men in 1616, featuring Pug, a junior demon who persuades his master Satan to let him spend a day in London. Taking over the body of a recently hanged thief, Pug becomes servant to a squire from Norfolk, Fitzdottrel, who doesn't believe that Pug is a devil but is happy that he asks no wages.
The Staple of News( 1625) : Jonson drew plot materials from Aristophanes’ plays. The language cabals in the play are drawn upon The Clouds, Assemblywomen, and Thesmophoriazusae. From The Wasps, he drew the idea of the mad Pennyboy Senior’s putting his dogs on trial. The main plot, about Lady Pecunia and her suitors, is derived from Plutus. The main plot, about the Pennyboy family and Lady Pecunia, is a satire on the emerging ethic of capitalism; and the play features a complex threefold satire on abuses of language in the News Staple, the society of jeerers, and the project for a Canting College.
A Tale of a Tub (1633): The plot of the play, borrowed from the Classical plays of Aristophanes and Plautus,concerns a variety of suitors’ attempt to win the hand of Audrey Turfe by resurrecting the mood of Elizabethan country farce. Audrey Turfe, the daughter of a Middlesex constable, had four suitors_____ John Clay the tilemaker, Squire Tub, a romantic rival, Justice Preamble and Pol-Marten. Eventually Audrey ends up marrying Pol-Marten and their wedding is celebrated with a masque, also titled "A Tale of a Tub," which retells the story of the play. This play was set on St. Valentine's Day and the title of the play colloquially resonates as "a cock and bull story." This play was published in 1640 in the second folio of Jonson's works.
The New Inn, or The Light Heart (1629): Set in the titular new inn, named as "Light Heart", Lady Frances Frampul invites some lords and gentlemen to wait on her at the inn. The host of the inn was Goodstock. This play follows a series of mistaken identity and an episode of cross- dressing. At least the comic effect is heightened with the revelation of the characters such as the host to be the father of Lady Frampul; Frank, the Host's adopted son, though was cross-dressed as Laetitia, turns out to be a real woman and Lady Frampul's long-lost sister ; and Laetitia's Irish nurse turns out to be their mother.
The Magnetic Lady, or Humours Reconciled,(1632) : The focus of the play lies in the "feminocentric environment" of the wealthy Lady Loadstone and her young, attractive, "marriageable" niece Placentia Steel. A complex tangle of misunderstandings eventually arises when fourteen years earlier, Mistress Polish, the governess, switched her own infant daughter with the Lady's niece Placentia. The girl known as Placentia is actually Polish's daughter Pleasance, and the supposed Pleasance, serving as the false Placentia's maid, is the true heir. With the intervention of Compass, who exposes Mistress Polish's plot , the confusion ends up and Captain Ironside and Compass prove themselves to be the suitable matches for aunt and niece.
Jonsonian Historical Tragedies
Sejanus his Fall (1603) : A Roman tragedy, performed by the King's Men 1603,with Shakespeare and Burbage in the cast, printed in 1605, based on the rise and fall of Sejanus during the reign of Tiberius,the Emperor of Rome. Sejanus is his right-hand man. He destroyed the family of Germanicus, and poisoned Tiberius' son Drusus. Suspecting the scope of his favourite's ambition, Tiberius leaves Rome, setting his agent Macro to spy on him. Tiberius denounces Sejanus in a letter to the senate, which condemns him to death, and the mob, stirred up by Macro, tears him to pieces. This play of Ben Jonson is a tragedy that portrays a society where books are burnt, “knowledge is made a capital offense,” and free men have become “the prey of greedy vultures and spies”— a reign of totalitarianism and tyranny. This play was accused of promoting "popery and treason" , and Jonson was questioned, but no action was taken against him.
Catiline his Conspiracy (1611) : This play was first published in quarto in 1611, prefaced by Beaumont,Fletcher, and Nathan Field, recounting the story of Catiline, the Roman politician and conspirator of the 1st century B.C. Besides Catiline appear other historical figures such as Julius Caesar, Sempronia, Fulvia, Crassus and Cicero.
Mortimer His Fall (1641) : It is an unfinished history play by Ben Jonson, about the overthrow of Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, who had become de facto ruler of England in 1327 with Isabella of France after deposing and murdering Isabella's husband Edward II of England.
Plays written in Collaboration
The Isle of Dogs(1597) : A satirical play with Thomas Nashe which leads to their prosecution.
The Case is Altered(1609), A comedy possibly with Henry Porter and Anthony Munday
Eastward Ho,(1605) :This city comedy was written by George Chapman, Ben Jonson and John Marston. This play, centering around a London goldsmith named Touchstone, satirizes the social customs of contemporary London along with an anti-Scottish tone. This offended James I and the three playwrights were imprisoned as a consequence.
Pastoral
The Sad Shepherd(1637) : Subtitled as A Tale of Robin Hood, this is the last, incomplete play by Ben Jonson, written around 1635 and printed posthumously in 1641, portraying the adventures of Robin Hood.
The Well-known Masques of Ben Jonson
The Masque of Beauty (1608)
The Masque of Queens (1609)
Oberon, or The Fairy Prince (1611)
References :
1. Daiches, David. A Critical History of English Literature, Vol I, pp.309-345
2. Albert, Edward. History of English Literature, Fifth edition, pp. 106-109
3. Abrams, M. H. Harpham G. Geoffrey, A Glossary of Literary Terms, pp. 57
4. Literary Yog
https://literaryyog.com › comedy-of...
Comedy of Humours
5. Britannica
https://www.britannica.com › art › c...
Comedy of humours | Character-driven, Satire, Farce
6. Poetry Foundation
https://www.poetryfoundation.org › ...
Ben Jonson
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