The Four Humours

A Handbook to Literature describes the four humours as “disease resulted from the dominance of some element within a single humour or from a lack of balance or proportion among the humours themselves. The humours gave off vapors that ascended to the brain” (263). So when glancing at the four humours, and what they symbolized, in terms of text, it is amazing to see which characters in the stories that have been discussed were ruled by certain humours. Take Beowulf, for example. It is quite obvious that Grendel was ruled by yellow bile – throughout the story, he was easily angered, obstinate, and very vengeful. All of these things eventually lead up to his downfall. Queen Guinevere of Lanval also could be said to have been controlled by an excess of yellow bile, as she became very angry and obstinate when the good knight, Lanval, refused her advances; so much so that she had him imprisoned on a false charge. As for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Bertilak was quite joyful and overly amorous, therefore contained a dominance of blood. Blood is also most noticeable in the Wife of Bath from The Canterbury Tales. She is very joyful, almost to the point of being boisterous, and was quite amorous – shown most obviously by her love of men, sex, and marriage. Lastly, Wagner of Doctor Faustus had quite the surplus of phlegm. He was cowardly throughout the tale, and on page 1029 even says “But that I am by nature phlegmatic.”