Emotion and the humors: scoring and classifying major characters from Shakespeare's comedies on the basis of their language.
The theory of humors, which was the prevalent theory of affect in Shakespeare's day, was used to explain both states (moods, emotions) and traits (personalities). This article reports humoral scores appropriate to the major characters of Shakespeare's comedies. The Dictionary of Affect in Language was used to score all words (N = 180,243) spoken by 105 major characters in 13 comedies in terms of their emotional undertones. These were translated into humoral scores. Translation was possible because emotional undertones, humor, and personality (e.g., Eysenck's model) are defined by various axes in the same two-dimensional space. Humoral scores differed for different types of characters, e.g., Shakespeare's lovers used more Sanguine language and his clowns more Melancholy language than other characters. A study of Kate and Petruchio from The Taming of the Shrew demonstrated state-like changes in humor for characters as the play unfolded.
Whissell
Cynthia
C
Psychology Department, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, P3E 2C6, Canada. cwhissell@laurentian.ca
D002605:Character; D057225:Data Mining; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000266:history*; D004324:Drama / Q000266:history*; D004644:Emotions; D004739:England; D049669:History, 16th Century; D049670:History, 17th Century; D006801:Humans; D008093:Literature, Modern / Q000266:history*; D008513:Medicine in Literature; D012660:Semantics; D013694:Temperament; D014925:Wit and Humor as Topic / Q000266:history*