The Four Humours

The Four Humours

The Four Humours are thought to control the personality of person and the physical and mental wellbeing. The Four Humors are blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile and have a direct association with the four elements; air, fire, water, and earth. In the literature we have read this semester at least one imbalance in humour can be found in the text, though it might be difficult to discover. The five that I have chosen are Eloisa to Abelard, Dr. Faustus, The Canterbury Tales’ “Wife of Bath”, Lanval, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
In Eloisa to Abelard, Eloisa is depressed over being apart from Abelard and not being able to concentrate on her service to god and at the same time passionate about Abelard, the feelings that her stirs within her, and about her service to God. This swing between a dominance of blood and a dominance of yellow bile causes Eloisa swings in her writing between wanting Abelard to come get her and cursing him for placing her in the predicament she now finds herself in.
In Dr. Faustus, the main character is suffering from a dominance of yellow bile as he rails against his society and his god when he makes his pact with the devil in order to obtain knowledge of the universe that was only known to the Lord. He is vengeful in the way that he treats the figures of authority with his magical tricks, most notable the selling of a disappearing horse to the Duke and making items disappear in from right under the nose of the pope himself. He is also suffering from an abundance of phlegm near the end of the play, causing him to be very pale when faced with the prospect of going to hell and he becomes very cowardly in his futile attempts to thwart the devil.
In The Canterbury Tales, the Wife of Bath is suffering from an abundance of blood and black bile. The abundance of blood causes her to be very amorous, hence the five husbands. She is in love with being in love, but this goes hand in hand with her abundance of black bile which causes her gluttonous appetite, both for rich food, rich dress, and many men. The combination of these two creates the image of a modern day gold digger, albeit a fat and sloppy one.
In Lanval, especially at the end of the tale, Lanval is suffering from an elevated level of black bile as he has become very melancholic at his perceived loss of his beloved Fairy Queen wife because he has told the court of King Arthur about her and therefore broken his word. His melancholia so disturbs the other knights that they keep watch over him to make sure that he does not harm himself. There is a significant upswing in blood and how he feels when his bride comes to Arthur’s court, rescuing him.
Finally in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Gawain suffers from a small upsurge of phlegm when faced with the prospect of having his head chopped off in the beheading game with the Green Knight. He flinches, showing the entire court his cowardice, and betraying the chivalric code he has sworn to uphold. But in the beginning of the tale he is suffering from an abundance of yellow bile when he becomes easily angered at the other knights in Arthur’s court when they will not accept the challenge of chopping the head off the Green knight, in effect displaying the same surge of phlegm that Gawain later suffers from at the end. It is the initial surge of yellow bile that causes Gawain to place himself in the predicament that carries the entire story.