Ben Jonson 
Every Man Out of His Humour 

Benjamin Jonson (1572-1637) was a Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor, known best for his satirical plays and lyric poems. He worked shortly as an actor in ’The Admiral’s Men’, but soon moved on to writing original plays for the troupe. Jonson’s works are highly significant to the English Renaissance, and are particularly recognizable because of his consistencies in style, intricacy of plot, characterization and setting. He focused on creating works that implemented elements of the realistic as well as the absurd. ’Every Man Out of His Humour’ is the companion play to the highly successful ’Every Man in His Humour, ’ which was produced by and starred William Shakespeare. This comedy of humors, much like its prequel, is a satire of English society. Jonson’s complex and witty characters are a scathing representation of the flaws he saw in education, love, poetry, and social classes around him.