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Every Man in His Humour is a 1598 play by the English playwright Ben Jonson. The play belongs to the subgenre of the 'humours comedy', in which each major character is dominated by an overriding humour or obsession.
Plot and Style
In general outline, this play follows Latin models quite closely. In the main plot, a gentleman named Kno'well, concerned for his son's moral development, attempts to spy on his son, a typical city gallant; however, his espionage is continually subverted by the servant, Brainworm, whom he employs for this purpose. These types are clearly slightly Anglicized versions of new comedy's Senex, son, and slave. In the subplot, a merchant named Kitely suffers intense jealousy, fearing that his wife is sleeping with Wellbred, a squire who is visiting in their home. The characters of these two plots are surrounded by various "humorous" characters, all in familiar English types: the irascible soldier, country gull, pretentious pot-poets, surly water-bearer, and avuncular judge all make an appearance. The play works through a series of complications which culminate when the justice, Clement, hears and decides all of the characters' various grievances, exposing each of them as based in humor, misapperception, or deceit.
The details of the plot, are, however, less important than the style of the play. Jonson's purpose is delineated in the prologue he wrote for the folio version. These lines, which have justly been taken as applying to Jonson's comic theory in general, are especially appropriate to this play. He promises to present "deeds, and language, such as men do use:/ And persons, such as comedy would choose,/ When she would show an Image of the times,/ And sport with human follies, not with crimes." The play follows out this implicit rejection of the romantic comedy of his peers. It sticks quite carefully to the Aristotelian unities; the plot is a tightly woven mesh of act and reaction; the scenes a genial collection of depictions of everyday life in a large Renaissance city.
History
Critics of the nineteenth century tended to credit Jonson with the introduction of "humour" comedy into English literature. It is now well known, not only that George Chapman's An Humorous Day's Mirth preceded Jonson's play by a year or more, but that Jonson himself was not especially intrigued by the trope of "humours." Since only Kitely is dominated by a "humour" as Jonson defined it in Every Man Out of His Humour, it seems more likely that Jonson was using a contemporary taste aroused by Chapman to draw interest to his play, which became his first indisputable hit.
The play was performed by the Lord Chamberlain's Men in 1598. A theater legend first recorded in 1709 has it that Shakespeare advocated production of the play at a point when the company was about to reject it. While this legend is unverifiable, it is all but certain, based on the playlist published in the folio, that Shakespeare played the part of Kno'well.
Jonson revised the play for the 1616 folio, where it was the first play presented. The most significant change was in the location. The 1598 edition was set in a vaguely identified Florence. Even in the original version, the background details were English; the revision formalizes this fact by giving the characters English names and replacing the vaguely English details with specific references to London places.
In 1599, Jonson wrote what would prove to be a much less popular sequel, Every Man out of His Humour.
External links
"Every Man in His Humour"