Typicality and Individualitiy in Ben Jonson's Every Man in His Humour - The Impact of the Four Humours (ePub)

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Regensburg (Institut für Anglistik), course: Hauptseminar „Ben Jonson – Poetry and Plays“, 18 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Medieval thinking divided society up into sinners and not-sinners; individual character seemed to have been of no importance as we can see in Middle English works. How did this change from the medieval twofold distinction to today’s craze for individuality come about? The Renaissance is generally regarded as the time in which, due to historical reasons, this change started. More and more comedies were written and the main concern of literary works shifted from religion to other, less binary topics like morality and social criticism. That is why the Renaissance is generally thought to be the cradle of the movement towards individualism. It needs to be examined more closely, though, to what degree this is true.
Object of an exemplary analysis of a Renaissance author shall be Ben Jonson who was regarded as the master of the Renaissance comedy during its heyday . This essay aims to scrutinise one of his earlier works, Every Man in His Humour. In order to find out whether its characters in fact show signs of ‘increased’ individuality, we first want to investigate the historic background. Most importantly, we then want to look at the impact of the humours concept which emerged in the Renaissance and of which Jonson made heavy use in his EMI.
Consisting of four categories rather than the medieval two, one should think that it promotes an individuality of the comedy’s characters, but this has to be questioned, as the four humours also are categories which render characters type-like. They do constitute a progress from the medieval concept, but not a step towards actual individuality. Therefore, one needs to examine whether characters perhaps fall out of the humours concept into a more individual role. Last but not least, we have to consider that the comic plot generally requires types and that this influenced how Jonson planned and shaped his characters. Then, we can conclude whether and, if yes, to what degree Jonson’s characters show individuality.