Every Man in His Humour | Comedy, Satire, Jacobean | Britannica (original) (raw)

Every Man in His Humour, comic drama in five acts that established the reputation of Ben Jonson, performed in London by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men in 1598 and revised sometime before its publication in the folio edition of 1616. With its galleries of grotesques, its scornful detachment, and its rather academic effect, the play introduced to the English stage a vigorous and direct anatomizing of “the time’s deformities”—the language, habits, and humours of the contemporary London scene.

The characters in Every Man in His Humour are based on the four humours of medieval physiology, bodily fluids that were held to influence personality or temperament. They are driven by their unchangeable personalities and tend to avoid interaction. See also comedy of humours.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.