Excerpt from Sejanus
Throughout his comedies, Jonson's treatment of character remains fundamentally the same: a psychologic theory, carried out with varying consistency, furnishes the groundwork in the portrayal of the individual. The proper field of comedy is the field of 'humours,' and a humour is not a mere whim, but a quality so completely predominant that it gives the tone to the disposition, influences all action, and, as it were, fixes the whole man. It is at once radical and permanent.
Such a conception has its place among the many phenomena of complex human nature; yet we may not of course accept it as completely formulating human nature in the abstract, nor, except rarely, in the concrete; and that Jonson himself realized this fact, after he had reduced his theory to absurdity in Cynthia's Revels, we have the very best of ground for believing. Yet matured reflection did not lead him to abandon the principle, however he may have modified the practice. Almost at the close of his dramatic career we find him stating it once more and emphasizing the consistency with which he had adhered to it.
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