Comedy of Humours Practice Questions

Correct answer: Ben Jonson

Ben Jonson is the dramatist most closely associated with the Comedy of Humours. He developed this comic method especially in Every Man in His Humour and Every Man out of His Humour.

Correct answer: a bodily fluid believed to influence temperament

The idea of humours comes from ancient and medieval medical theory, which linked bodily fluids with personality. Jonson adapted this concept to create characters dominated by one ruling trait or obsession.

Correct answer: Every Man in His Humour

Every Man in His Humour is one of the key examples of Jonson's Comedy of Humours. The play presents characters whose behaviour is shaped by dominant personal eccentricities.

Correct answer: Elizabethan era

Every Man in His Humour was first performed in the late Elizabethan period. Although Jonson is often discussed with Jacobean drama, this early play belongs to the Elizabethan stage context.

Correct answer: William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is traditionally believed to have acted in Every Man in His Humour. This connection also shows Jonson's closeness to the professional theatre world of his time.

Correct answer: A character dominated by one exaggerated trait

In Comedy of Humours, characters are often governed by a single dominant quality, passion, or eccentricity. This exaggeration allows the playwright to expose folly and social absurdity.

Correct answer: To correct social follies by exposing eccentricity

Comedy of Humours uses comic exaggeration to expose human folly, vanity, and imbalance. Its purpose is often corrective and satirical, aiming to restore social and moral proportion.

Correct answer: Every Man out of His Humour

Every Man out of His Humour is Jonson's companion play to Every Man in His Humour. It extends the humour theory more self-consciously and satirizes a wider range of social affectations.

Correct answer: Satirical comedy based on social types and morals

Jonson's Comedy of Humours is a form of satirical comedy based on social types, obsessions, and moral imbalance. It strongly influenced later English comedy, including comedy of manners.

Correct answer: Horace

Jonson was deeply influenced by classical writers such as Horace. His comedy often follows a classical ideal of moral correction, satirical restraint, and formal discipline.

Correct answer: Stephen

Master Stephen is a comic figure in Every Man in His Humour who displays foolish imitation and social pretension. His behaviour fits the humour comedy pattern of exposing exaggerated folly.

Correct answer: Bobadill

Bobadill is a braggart soldier figure in Every Man in His Humour. He talks in inflated military terms but is exposed as cowardly and ridiculous.

Correct answer: A coward boasting of military greatness

Bobadill is dominated by boastfulness and false military pride. His comic exposure is typical of Jonson's method of satirizing a ruling humour.

Correct answer: emphasizes satirical correction of fixed social eccentricities

Comedy of Humours focuses on correcting distorted behaviour through satire. Romantic comedy often gives greater importance to love, reconciliation, disguise, and festive resolution.

Correct answer: Classical discipline and satirical realism

Jonson's comedy is marked by classical discipline, careful structure, and satirical observation of real social behaviour. These features distinguish his work from more romantic or purely imaginative comedy.

Correct answer: A world of London types, affectations, pretensions, and comic exposure

Jonson's humour comedies often present urban social types and expose fashionable affectations. London society becomes a stage for vanity, imitation, greed, and foolish self-display.

Correct answer: unbalanced by a dominant temperament or obsession

Humour characters become comic because one trait dominates their personality too strongly. This imbalance makes their behaviour predictable, exaggerated, and open to satire.

Correct answer: A focus on supernatural horror as the main effect

Comedy of Humours does not usually depend on supernatural horror. Its main effects come from satire, exaggerated character types, and the exposure of social or moral imbalance.

Correct answer: It helped shape the comedy of manners through its satire of social types

Comedy of Humours influenced later comedy by emphasizing social types, affectation, and satirical correction. Restoration comedy of manners developed many of these interests in a more fashionable and witty social setting.

Correct answer: It is a Jonsonian comic mode satirizing people dominated by excessive traits

Comedy of Humours is central to Ben Jonson's dramatic achievement. It uses the idea of dominant temperaments to create comic characters and satirize social folly.