Elizabethan Drama | Representative Works
Everyman in His Humour
Ben Jonson’s Everyman in His Humour was first produced in 1598 by Shakespeare’s company, The Lord Chamberlain’s Men. It is Jonson’s first important play and is also the first play to be labeled a “comedy of humours.” Humours were bodily fluids that were believed to control a person’s temperament. If an individual had too much of any one humour, he would exhibit that characteristic to excess. In the play, Jonson emphasizes these “humours” and achieves his comic effect by exaggerating each character’s quirks, almost to the...
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