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  • Article

Shakespeare’s cholerics were the real drama queens

In Shakespeare’s times, people’s personalities were categorised by four temperaments. The choleric temperament was hot-tempered and active.

  • Article

Shakespeare and the four humours

Blood. Phlegm. Black bile. Yellow bile. The theory of the four humours informed many of Shakespeare's best-known characters, including the phlegmatic Falstaff.

  • Article

Hamlet, the melancholic Prince of Denmark

Hamlet clearly demonstrates an excess of black bile and is arguably the most famous literary melancholic.

  • Article

How do advertisers get inside our heads?

Vance Packard exposed techniques of mass manipulation developed by 1950s advertisers that are still at work today in the age of big data.

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Images

  • The four qualities, elements, humours and temperaments. Drawing, 19--.
  • The four temperaments, from Lavater, Essays on physiognomy, 1789
  • Four men of different temperaments looking at a painting of a dying man. Engraving by Grignion after D. Chodowiecki.
  • Four heads of men who each exhibit one of the four temperaments: (clockwise from top left) lymphatic, sanguine, bilious, and nervous. Engraving by W. Johnson and A.K. Johnson, early 19th century.
  • Four heads of men who each exhibit one of the four temperaments: (clockwise from top left) lymphatic, sanguine, bilious, and nervous. Engraving by W. Johnson and A.K. Johnson, early 19th century.
  • The four elements, four qualities, four humours, four seasons, and four ages of man. Airbrush by Lois Hague, 1991.
  • The four elements, four qualities, four humours, four seasons, and four ages of man. Airbrush by Lois Hague, 1991.
  • Apollo presiding over a gentleman of sensual appetite; representing the sanguine temperament. Etching by J.D. Nessenthaler, ca. 1750.
  • Apollo presiding over a gentleman of sensual appetite; representing the sanguine temperament. Etching by J.D. Nessenthaler, ca. 1750.
  • A depressed scholar surrounded by mythological figures; representing the melancholy temperament. Etching by J.D. Nessenthaler, ca. 1750.
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