Early on in Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman there is a reference to the theory of Humorism. According to the Oxford English Dictionary Online, humorism is “the theory that health, disease, and temperament are determined by the four humours of the body”. A humour is “any of four fluids of the body (blood, phlegm, choler, and so-called melancholy or black bile) believed to determine, by their relative proportions and conditions, the state of health and the temperament of a person or animal” (OED Online).
In the first chapter of Volume I, Tristram describes his conception and the failure of his parents to take it seriously. He claims that the manner in which a man is begotten can effect “the production of a rational Being. . .the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind; –and. . . even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost” (Sterne 5). There is also a footnote for this passage included by the editor, Ian Campbell Ross, listing what the four humours are and further explaining that it was thought in “ancient physiology” that “the ideal person had an equal mixture of the four, while a predominance of one would lead to a person who was sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric or melancholy” (541). It was thought that the four humours, and body fluids in general, completely determined a person’s health and emotional stability. By referencing the theory of humorism, Tristram is further affirming his belief that conception is the most important factor in how someone turns out later in life. This reference is also a bit ironic because while the four humours are not actually the fluids that determine who a person becomes, DNA is, which is contained in another bodily fluid, semen.
Ross likely included this footnote because the word “humour” or “humor” has a much different meaning in current english than it did in the time Sterne wrote the novel. Those who have not encountered this theory in other works or through research of their own would have been confused to its meaning in this context. Also, because this was such a important aspect of ancient medicine and ideologies, it also gives the reader some insight into how important Tristram’s idea about conception is to him and how seriously he takes it.
The image that I chose is an illustrative representation of the four humours, also called the four temperaments, (clockwise, starting from the top left): Sanguine (Blood), Choler (Yellow Bile), Phlegm, and Melancholy (Black Bile). Each of the separate images represent the emotion that humour is associated with. Sanguine is associated with contentment or carefreeness, Choler with anger or aggression, Phlegm with neutrality or a lack of emotion, and Melancholy with depression. The four humours are also associated with seasons, which is also depicted in the illustration: Sanguine is associated with spring, Choler with summer, Phlegm with winter, and Melancholy with autumn.
Works Cited
“humorism, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, September 2016. Web. 17 November 2016.
“humour | humor, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, September 2016. Web. 18 November 2016.
Sterne, Laurence. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Edited by Ross, Ian Campbell. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.