This article does not cite any sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Comedy of humours" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR(December 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
The comedy of humours is a genre of dramatic comedy that focuses on a character or range of characters, each of whom exhibits two or more overriding traits or 'humours' that dominates their personality, desires and conduct. This comic technique may be found in Aristophanes, but the English playwrights Ben Jonson and George Chapman popularised the genre in the closing years of the sixteenth century. In the later half of the seventeenth century, it was combined with the comedy of manners in Restoration comedy.
In Jonson’s Every Man in His Humour (acted 1598), which made this type of play popular, all the words and acts of Kitely are controlled by an overpowering suspicion that his wife is unfaithful; George Downright, a country squire, must be "frank" above all things; the country gull in town determines his every decision by his desire to "catch on" to the manners of the city gallant.
In his Induction to Every Man out of His Humour (1599). Jonson explains this character formula:
Some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, In their confluctions, all to run one way.
The comedy of humours owes something to earlier vernacular comedy but more to a desire to imitate the classical comedy of Plautus and Terence and to combat the vogue of romantic comedy, as developed by William Shakespeare. The satiric purpose of the comedy of humours and its realistic method led to more serious character studies with Jonson’s 1610 play The Alchemist. The humours each had been associated with physical and mental characteristics; the result was a system that was quite subtle in its capacity for describing types of personality.
v
t
e
Comedy
Topics
Comedian
Comedic device
Comedy festival
Comedy troupe
Comic timing
Farce
Humorist
Humour
Impersonator
Impressionist
Irony
Joke
Prank call
Punch line
Satire
Visual gag
Wit
Word play
Film
Country
American
British
French
Italian
Genre
Action
Fantasy
Horror
Mockumentary
Parody
Remarriage
Romance
Science fiction
Screwball
Sex
Italian
Mexican
Silent
Slapstick
Stoner
Thriller
Theatre
Country
Europe
Ancient Greek comedy
Comédie-Française
Comédie-Italienne
Corral de comedias
Theatre of ancient Rome
Asia
China
Xiangsheng
Hong Kong
Mo lei tau
Indonesia
Lenong
Ludruk
Japan
Kyōgen
Manzai
Owarai
Rakugo
Sarugaku
Genre
Boulevard theatre
Comedy-drama
Comedy of humours
Comedy of manners
Comedy of menace
Commedia dell'arte
Double act
Improvisational
Macchietta
One-person show
Pantomime
Harlequinade
Restoration comedy
Sentimental comedy
Comédie larmoyante
Shadow play
Shakespearean comedy
Sketch comedy
Spex
Stand-up comedy
Street theatre
Theatre of the Absurd
Tragicomedy
Vaudeville
Music and dance
Ballad opera
Cabaret
Café-chantant
Café-théâtre
Comédie-ballet
Comedy club
Light music
Music hall
Musical theatre
Opéra bouffe
Opéra bouffon
Opera buffa
Opéra comique
Operetta
Revue
Media
Music
Album
Rock
Hip hop
Parody
Musical comedians
Novel
Radio
Television
Mockumentary
Roast
Sitcom
Animated sitcom
Black sitcom
Teen sitcom
Subgenres
Alternative
Black
Blue
Character
Christian
Clown
Cringe
Deadpan (dry humor)
Documentary
High / low
Horror
Insult
Observational
Physical
Prop
Self-referential
Shock
Sick
Slapstick
Topics
Surreal
Ventriloquism
Zombie
Category
Portal
Authority control databases: National
Israel
United States
This theatre-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
The comedyofhumours is a genre of dramatic comedy that focuses on a character or range of characters, each of whom exhibits two or more overriding traits...
reminiscent of dying. Black humour can occasionally be related to the grotesque genre. Literary critics have associated black comedy and black humour with authors...
Surreal humour (also called surreal comedy, absurdist humour, or absurdist comedy) is a form ofhumour predicated on deliberate violations of causal reasoning...
Ben Jonson's comedyofhumours, made fun of affected wit and acquired follies of the time. The masterpieces of the genre were the plays of William Wycherley...
theory of the four humors features prominently in Rupert Thomson's 2005 novel Divided Kingdom. Classical element Comedyofhumours Three Doshas of Ayurveda...
Comedyofhumours, as practiced by Ben Jonson and George Chapman Comedyof intrigue, as practiced by Niccolò Machiavelli and Lope de Vega Comedyof manners...
Australian comedy (or Australian humour) refers to the comedy and humour performed in or about Australia or by the people of Australia. Australian humour can...
Deadpan, dry humour, or dry-wit humour is the deliberate display of emotional neutrality or no emotion, commonly as a form ofcomedic delivery to contrast...
Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods: Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, and New Comedy. Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the...
from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humours (Latin: humor, "body fluid")...
The National Comedy Awards (known as the British Comedy Awards from 1990 to 2014) is an annual awards ceremony in the United Kingdom, celebrating notable...
German humour is the conventions ofcomedy and its cultural meaning within the country of Germany. German humour encompasses traditions such as Kabarett...
Cup is competed for annually at the United Hospitals Comedy Revue, by all five of the University of London Medical Schools. It has been won by all medical...
were Jewish. The Jewish comedy tradition continues today, with Jewish humor much entwined with mainstream humor, as comedies like Seinfeld, Curb Your...
Edinburgh Comedy Awards (formerly the Perrier Comedy Awards, and also briefly known by other names for sponsorship reasons) are presented to the comedy shows...
Jonson's late-Elizabethan comediesofhumours (1598–1599), the conventions of city comedy developed rapidly in the first decade of the Jacobean era, as one...
Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. Slapstick may involve both...
elements of comedy and drama. In television, modern scripted comedy dramas tend to have more humour integrated into the story than the comic relief common in...
Shock humour is a style ofcomedy intended to shock the audience. This can be achieved through excessively foul toilet humour, overt sexual themes, mocking...
English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedyofhumours; he is best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour (1598), Volpone, or...
sleeping demon on the side of the road while on a walk. It wakes after being bound with a cordon blessed in the name of Francis of Assisi, and after being...
(also collectively known as the Pythons) were a British comedy troupe formed in 1969 consisting of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle...
Toilet humour, or potty or scatological humour (compare scatology), is a type of off-colour humour dealing with defecation, diarrhea, constipation, urination...
Every Man in His Humour is a 1598 play by the English playwright Ben Jonson. The play belongs to the subgenre of "humourscomedy", in which each major...
1990s comedy films. Shore began as a stand-up comedian at the age of 17, before becoming an MTV VJ in 1989. This led to a starring role in the comedy film...
Medal, is an annual Canadian literary award presented for the best book ofhumour written in English by a Canadian writer, published or self-published in...
Manzai Stand-up comedy Tanaka, Sakurako (1993). Talking through the text : Rakugo and the oral/literal interface (Master thesis). University of British Columbia...
May 1975), an English comedian, actor, inventor of the mousie, and screenwriter. He began his comedy career in 2004 and has supported Alan Carr and Russell...
by the airport. As the nation's capital city, political humour is also common. Notable comedy shows with politics as a central theme have included Gliding...