Humor does or says something which relates to our very human nature and yet is exaggerated as much as necessary to separate the audience enough to laugh at. This is important because humor must be natural in which all men could relate to it through which they may see bits of themselves and their friends in each mannerism, but removed enough not to be offensive toward an individual whom acts exactly as it is portrayed and thus being himself laughed at by the audience. Thomas Hobbes in On Wit, Humour, and Laughter: 1650-1775 reiterates this point by saying “for men laugh at the follies of themselves past, when they come suddenly to remembrance, except they bring with them any present dishonor.” Exaggeration acts as a buffer between the audience's perception of comedy and their own foibles at which no one person would want to laugh at. Congreve, now having stated that humor is natural and exaggerated also goes on to explain where the humor in each character comes from. He begins to say how the four humors or temperaments play each a part in bringing about true humor,
“But there is a great difference between a comedy wherein there are many things humorously, as they call it which is pleasantly, spoken, and one where there are several characters of humor distinguished by the particular and different Humors appropriated to the several persons represented and which naturally arise from the different constitutions, complexions and dispositions of men.”
These “humors,” or dispositions of men, come from an ancient way of thinking. They started out as ways to explicate medical maladies. According to the Columbia Encyclopedia:
“Humor, as ancient theory, is any of four bodily fluids that determined a man's health and temperament. Hippocrates postulated that an imbalance among the humors (Blood, Phlegm, Black Bile, and Yellow Bile) resulted in pain and disease, and that good health was achieved through a balance of the four humors.”
It is not until later that Galen introduced a new aspect, where as the four humors also made up a person's personality. This is what Congreve and his contemporaries knew of the four humors and which Congreve relates to “humor” as we know the term to be used. “In literature, a humor character was one in whom a single passion predominated; the theory found its strongest advocates among the comedy writers . . . who used humor characters to illustrate various modes of irrational and immoral behavior.”
Understanding that characters come from the natural and abide by the same rules of personality as everyone else, it is truly high humor when the comic joke and the personality are in tune, as Congreve explains: “…But I think the follies should be only such as men's Humors may incline "em to, and not follies entirely abstracted from both Humor and Nature.” This is then recognized by Congreve in the character of Morose in Silent Woman. Morose is said to be a Splenetic and Melancholy person. He is easily set off by loud noises. “But Morose you will say is so extravagant he cannot bear any discourse or conversation above a whisper. Why, it is his excess of this Humor that makes him become ridiculous and qualifies his character for comedy.” (Congreve)
Recognizing ourselves in this naturalistic humor is not the only way to recognize humor, but also in the recognition of “celebrities” or their attributes. This is not affectation because they are not trying to play the same character but to exaggerate the tendencies of those celebrities" personalities. In A Defense of Sir Fopling Flutter by John Dennis, he elucidates this by looking at Dorimant from the Man of Mode by George Etherege, “… and all the world was charmed with Dorimant; and that it was unanimously agreed that he had in him several of the qualities of Wilmot Earl of Rochester, as his wit, his spirit, his amorous temper, the charms that he had for the fair sex, his falsehood, and his inconstancy; the agreeable manner of his chiding his servants, which the late Bishop of Salisbury takes notice of in his life; and lastly, his repeating on every occasion the verses of Waller, for whom that noble lord had a very particular esteem; witness his imitation of the Tenth Satire of the First Book of Horace:”
Congreve and his contemporaries saw humor stemming from personality, the one thing all mankind can relate to. True humor is natural and not forced, and it is exaggerated enough to make it ridiculous, as to set it apart from our own self-consciousness. Let us now look at the plays of the time and examine this recognition of humor within the works.
