Comedy of humours is an English Renaissance comic style in which characters are ruled by an exaggerated dominant temperament, or humour. In British Literature I, it shows up most clearly in Ben Jonson and in plays that satirize social types.
Comedy of humours is a dramatic style from the English Renaissance that turns personality into the engine of the joke. Instead of building comedy around accidents or confusion alone, it makes one trait, like jealousy, vanity, greed, or excess, define a character's behavior and trigger the plot.
The term comes from humour theory, the old medical idea that the body held four fluids, or humours, and that a person's balance of those fluids shaped temperament. A character who is all one humour is not realistic in a modern psychological sense. That exaggeration is the point, because it makes the character easy to spot, easy to mock, and easy to use as a satirical target.
In British Literature I, comedy of humours belongs to the world of late 16th and early 17th century drama, especially the plays of Ben Jonson. Jonson is the writer most closely associated with the form, and he uses these exaggerated figures to expose social absurdities. The characters often behave like walking stereotypes, but they are really doing cultural work, showing how obsession, pretension, and self-deception can distort ordinary life.
The structure usually depends on collision. One character's dominant humour clashes with another's, and the plot moves because each person keeps acting according to a fixed flaw. That means the comedy is not just random wit. It is built from repetition, pattern, and the pressure of watching the same weakness appear in scene after scene.
A helpful way to read the form is to look for how the play sorts people into types. Is someone ruled by vanity? Suspicion? Melancholy? Appetite? When you see those traits amplified beyond realism, you are probably in comedy of humours territory. The laughs come from recognition, but the sharper effect is the critique underneath: the play suggests that social life can become ridiculous when people are governed by one overpowering impulse.
Comedy of humours matters in British Literature I because it shows how Renaissance writers used character to critique society. Instead of presenting people as fully balanced individuals, these plays flatten a trait until it becomes a comic lens. That makes the genre a useful bridge between medieval moral satire and later character-driven comedy.
It also gives you a clearer way to read Ben Jonson. His comedy is not just “funny dialogue.” He often builds a whole play around a single kind of human foolishness, then lets that foolishness expose class vanity, greed, affectation, or social climbing. Once you know the form, you can explain why a character feels so extreme and why that extremity is doing more than making the scene silly.
The term also connects directly to Renaissance ideas about the body and mind. The old humour theory reminds you that early modern literature often treated personality as something physical, visible, and changeable. That historical background matters because it explains why these characters can feel both comic and morally pointed at the same time.
In essays and discussion, comedy of humours gives you a strong vocabulary for style. You can talk about characterization, satire, exaggeration, and social criticism all at once. It helps you move beyond saying a character is “weird” or “annoying” and toward explaining how the play turns a flaw into a dramatic method.
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view galleryHumour Theory
Comedy of humours comes straight out of humour theory, the old belief that the four bodily fluids shaped personality and behavior. When a play makes one temperament dominate a character, it is borrowing that medical model and turning it into comedy. Knowing the theory helps you see why these characters are usually exaggerated types rather than realistic individuals.
Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson is the writer most associated with comedy of humours in British Literature I. His plays often build whole scenes around one person's obsession or flaw, then let other characters expose how ridiculous that trait is. If you are asked to identify the form, Jonson is usually the first author to mention.
Satire
Comedy of humours is often satirical, but satire and the form are not the same thing. Satire is the broader mode of criticism, while comedy of humours is a specific way of staging that criticism through exaggerated personality traits. A play can use humour-type characters to make a social point about vanity, greed, or pretension.
As You Like It
As You Like It is not a pure comedy of humours, but it can help you see how Renaissance drama plays with type, mood, and theatrical identity. Compared with Jonson's harsher satire, Shakespeare often gives characters more flexibility and emotional range. That contrast helps you spot what makes comedy of humours feel more fixed and mechanical.
A quiz or passage-analysis question may ask you to identify why a character feels exaggerated, repetitive, or one-note, and the right move is to connect that pattern to comedy of humours. In an essay, you can use the term to explain how a playwright turns a dominant flaw into satire. Look for scenes where one trait keeps driving decisions, especially if other characters react as if that flaw is the whole person. If a prompt compares Shakespeare and Jonson, comedy of humours is a strong label for Jonson's more type-based comic method. You can also mention humour theory to show the historical basis behind the style, not just the plot effect.
These are related but not identical. Satire is the broader purpose of mocking or critiquing behavior, institutions, or social types. Comedy of humours is a specific dramatic form that often uses exaggerated, one-dominant-trait characters to create that mockery. A play can be satirical without being a comedy of humours, but the latter usually has a satirical edge.
Comedy of humours is an English Renaissance comic form built around exaggerated character traits, not just around funny events.
The form comes from humour theory, the old belief that bodily fluids shaped temperament and behavior.
Ben Jonson is the major writer tied to this style in British Literature I, especially for his sharp social satire.
When you see a character driven by one overwhelming flaw, you are probably looking at comedy of humours.
The genre uses exaggeration to expose human foolishness and the absurdity of social behavior.
It is a Renaissance comic style in which characters are dominated by one exaggerated temperament or flaw. The comedy comes from watching that single trait create conflict, repetition, and social mockery. In British Literature I, it is most often associated with Ben Jonson.
Satire is the broader practice of criticizing behavior or society through irony, mockery, or exaggeration. Comedy of humours is a specific dramatic method that often uses fixed character types to make that criticism. So satire is the purpose, while comedy of humours is one way of doing it.
Jonson popularized the form in English Renaissance drama and used it to build memorable characters around single dominant flaws. His plays often turn vanity, greed, jealousy, or pretension into comic engines. That makes him the main author to know when this term comes up.
Look for characters who seem ruled by one trait and keep acting in the same exaggerated way. If the plot depends on that trait causing repeated conflict, misunderstanding, or mockery, the play is using comedy of humours. The style usually feels more type-based than realistic.