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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Every Man in his Humour: ‘Learn to be Wise and Practice How to Thrive’

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