Every Man in his Humour: ‘Learn to be Wise and Practice How to Thrive’
Episode 176:
In ‘Every Man In His Humour’ Jonson pays a debt to Roman comedy, but also shows us, in an almost fully formed way, his very own style. This is not the biting satire of many of his plays, but something a little gentler in that he is not taking aim at specific people and certainly not at the court, as he was to do later. ‘Every Man in His Humour’ is a city comedy with it’s large cast of London characters and it is they, as a group, who are Jonson’s target on this occasion.
The early performance history of the play
The printing history of the play
The differences between the quarto and folio versions of the play
The London setting of and as a character in the play
A synopsis of the play
The complexity of the plot structure
The effect of ‘humours’ on character
The comedic characters based on Roman comic characters
An analysis of the prologue
Brainworm the instigator of deception
Edward Knowell the portrait of a London Student
Old Knowell as a sympathetic father
Mathew the poet and butt of the joke
Bobadil the braggart soldier
Kitely the jealous husband
The later performance history of the play
The use of prose in the play
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