Every Man Out of His Humour

Ben Jonson's 1599 satirical masterpiece tears through Jacobean London society with surgical precision. A sequel to his earlier hit Every Man In His Humour, this play perfects Jonson's signature method: assembling a vivid parade of London's most absurd figures, vainglorious knights, parasitic courtiers, jealous malcontents, and holding them up for merciless examination through the lens of the four humours theory. The character Asper serves as Jonson's surrogate on stage, a satirical commentator who heckles the action and directly addresses the audience, collapsing the distance between play and reality. Puntarvolo, a pompous country gentleman prone to outlandish boasts, and Carlo Buffone, a clown whose wit cuts deeper than mere buffoonery, lead a cast of characters each imprisoned by their dominant humour. Jonson's dialogue crackles with the righteous anger of a writer who believed comedy could correct the nation's morals. This isn't gentle mockery, it is theatrical warfare, a deliberate attempt to raise the dramatic lampoon to high art and rival the ancients. For readers who crave theatre that bites back, that refuses to let its audience sit comfortably, this remains an act of dramatic defiance.