WEBVTT

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[Shrew taming and other tales of the four humors, Gail Kern Paster, 2012]

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[Jeff Reznick:] Hi,
good afternoon.

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My name is Jeff Reznick, I'm
Chief of the History of Medicine

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division here at the
National Library of Medicine.

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Welcome to everyone
this afternoon.

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Our speaker today
is Gail Kern Paster,

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director of the Folger
Shakespeare Library here

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in Washington from 2002
until her retirement

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just recently from
the position in 2011.

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With her bachelor's
degree from Smith College

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and a doctorate from
Yale, Dr. Paster

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is an accomplished scholar.

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She is author of numerous
articles and three books.

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Most recently, Humoring
The Body: Emotions

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and the Shakespearean
Stage, published

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by University of Chicago Press.

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She is also co-editor of
several other volumes.

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She has taught English at the
George Washington University

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from 1974 to 2002.

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She served as president
of the Shakespeare

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Association of America in 2003.

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And edited the Shakespeare
Quarterly until 2009.

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Dr. Paster's work has won
her numerous fellowships

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from foundations including
the Woodrow Wilson

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Foundation, the Andrew Mellon
Foundation, and the John Simon

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Guggenheim Memorial Foundation,
as well as the National

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Endowment for the Humanities.

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More recently, and the occasion
of her visit with us today,

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she curated in consultation
with Dr. Ted Brown

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from the University of Rochester,
HMD's current special display

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in our reading room as
well as the banner show.

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And there's the humor of
it, Shakespeare and the four

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humors.

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Her topic for today is,
Shrew Taming and Other Tales

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of the Four Humors.

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Please join me in welcoming
Dr. Paster here today.

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Thank you.

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[Applause]

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[...]

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[Gail Kern Paster:]
Thank you, Jeff.

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I want to begin, first of all,
by thanking Patti Tuohy,

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Manon Parry,
Jiwon Kim, and Ted Brown.

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It was Patti who
kept encouraging

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me to do this exhibition.

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And I will say
that I took it on,

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in part, because of her warm
encouragement and persistence,

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in truth.

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But also because I had the sense
that curating an exhibition

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really takes a different
mindset and a different skill

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set than just writing a book.

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And so it proved to be.

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It was really a
great amount of fun

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for me to be thinking about how
to present this subject that I

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know so deeply but in a
visually arresting manner.

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And it was really
wonderful to do.

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And I just want to thank
Patti and [? Menon ?]

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and Jiwon for their hard work.

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And Ted for his
intellectual collegiality

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and clarity and common sense.

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And vehemence.

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[...]

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For Shakespeare, as
for his contemporaries,

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the how of human behavior,
if not ultimately the why,

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could be explained in the
language of the four humors, as

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developed over the centuries by
Aristotle, Galen, Hippocrates,

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and their followers.

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Coursing through the bloodstream
from the various bodily organs,

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which were their site of origin,
the four humors of blood,

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phlegm, yellow bile,
also known as choler,

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and black bile, also
known as melancholy,

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delivered their
operative mixtures

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of hot, cold, moist, and
dry to all the body's parts.

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Even the spirits, which ran
through the neural pathways,

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were a product of the humors.

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Having been concocted from
blood by the rarifying

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action of heart and lungs.

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The operation of
the four qualities,

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both within the
body and interacting

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with the world
outside it, governed

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the behavior of all creatures.

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Animal and human, male
and female, young and old,

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in winter and summer alike.

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As you read in the
exhibition text,

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"the mind's inclination follows
the body's temperature."

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This is Galen.

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And so it was thought to be.

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Heat stimulated action,
cold depressed it.

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Clear judgment
and prudent action

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required the clear flow, the
free flow of clear liquids

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in the brain.

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But melancholy,
or choler, altered

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and darkened those fluids.

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Clouded the judgment,
as we still say.

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The young warriors
dominant choler,

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gave him the courage
to storm into battle.

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While his cowardly opposite
was afflicted by phlegm.

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He might storm
into battle, but he

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lacked the heat to stay there.

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Phlegm, the cold,
moist humor, was also

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responsible for the general
inconstancy of women.

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Explaining how it was that
women lacked the purposefulness,

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the heat, that produced
historically significant

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action.

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Youth was hot and moist.

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Age cold and dry.

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Men, as a sex, were generally
hotter and drier, more active

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than women.

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We see these traits in the
typological emblems which

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introduced this exhibition.

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The medieval woodcuts of
the four temperaments,

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or the later emblems of Henry
Peachem, in Minerva Britanna.

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And we see these traits more
subtly and more complexly

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in the plays of Shakespeare.

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Though Shakespeare
is widely and rightly

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praised for the psychological
realism of his characters,

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it is the outmoded
language of the humors

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that pervades his plays.

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And attention to them deepens
our understanding of them.

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We moderns have
long ago discarded

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the four humors as a
satisfactory explanation

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for anything.

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Given the erroneous bodily facts
on which the theory was based,

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the utter absence of anything
like black bile in the body,

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and of course, the advent
both of modern medicine

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and modern psychology.

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Yet, we do well to pay
attention to the four humors

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not only because the classical
theory lasted so long and was

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thought to explain so much,
but also, and more importantly,

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because the theory
of the four humors

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is governed by an overarching
materialism very much

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in line with contemporary
neuropsychiatry,

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both in theory and in practice.

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In this talk, I will not
explore these connections

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between then and now.

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But they were very much in the
minds of Ted Brown, and me,

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and Patti as we
worked collaboratively

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on organizing this exhibition.

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And if you will
go to the website

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and go to the lesson plans
that Ted brilliantly designed,

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you will see those
connections drawn out

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between the thinking of
then and the thinking of now

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and everything that connects
them, at least in theory,

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if not--

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thank God I suppose one
might say-- in practice.

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Today I want to focus on the
three Shakespeare characters

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whom we feature
in the exhibition.

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Shylock, Ophelia, and
Kate Minola in order

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to suggest how we might read
and understand them humorally,

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just as Shakespeare's
first audiences did.

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It is important
for us to recognize

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that for those first
audiences there was no way--

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conceptually or discursively--
to separate the psychological

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from the physiological.

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The organic soul, sometimes
called the sensitive soul,

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was that part of the tripartite
soul in charge of the emotions.

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Its physical model is well
described by Harvard historian

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Kathryn Park as "a simple
hydraulic one based

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on a clear localization
of psychological function

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by organ or system of organs."

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And the model was recursive.

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As one natural philosopher
of the period wrote,

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the humors breed passions,
the passions breed humors.

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Consider the role of the
heart and one's experience

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of its action in moments
of extreme emotion

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as described by the Jesuits
philosopher Thomas Wright

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in 1604.

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"Who loveth extremely and
feelth not that passion

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to dissolve his heart?

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Who rejoiceth and proveth
not his heart dilated?

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Who is moiled
with heaviness

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or plunged with
pain and perceiveth

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not his heart to be coarcted?

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Whom inflameth ire and
hath not heart burning?"

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Wright is describing
how the heart

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changed in size and substance in
the throes of various passions.

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Its flesh became
more moist and tender

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in the experience
of love or pity.

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Its size enlarged in
the experience of joy.

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It contracted in sadness.

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And its temperature
rose in anger.

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Such changes could not
be witnessed directly,

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but they could be felt.
Othello, reunited

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with Desdemona in Cyprus
is overcome by joy.

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"I cannot speak enough
of this content.

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It stops me here," he says,
gesturing to his heart.

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"What clause in nature
makes these hard hearts?"

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Lear asks despairingly
of his daughters

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as they systematically deny
the aged King servance,

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lodging, and loving obedience.

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He means the question literally,
understanding their ingratitude

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to proceed from, if not
to be justified morally,

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by a fatal hardness of heart.

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And again, the
symptomatology was recursive.

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If their cruelty is caused
by their hardness of heart,

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acts of cruelty also
exacerbate that hardness.

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Making Goneril and Regan
capable of ever more

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cruelty as the play progresses.

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And this is what we see.

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In the case of Shylock's
rage and combativeness,

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the Elizabethans would have
seen the bitter interaction

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of the humors of
choler and melancholy.

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Even as we might more
sympathetically recognize

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that rage and combativeness
as the traits that

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have made for Shylock's
business success

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in a difficult anti-Semitic
environment on the Rialto.

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The cold, dry
humor of melancholy

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was an affliction
of age, generally.

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But it also manifested
itself in grasping behavior

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and retentiveness, as we see
when Shylock tells Jessica

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"to lock up my doors and
stop my house's ears"

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against the sound of
music and revelry.

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Shylock's heart
has literally been

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hardened by a combination
of social and environmental

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factors, including his
age and his experiences

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as a money lending
Jew in Venice.

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He has been spat
upon, spurned, mocked,

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and reviled by the
anti-Semites among whom he

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lives and tries to do business.

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He clearly exalts
at having Antonio,

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his particular adversary,
within his power

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and within the
scope of his revenge

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once Antonio asks to borrow
3,000 ducats for his friend

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Bassanio.

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And Shylock's heart hardens
against Antonio even more

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when his daughter Jessica
is stolen away from him

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by the young Lorenzo
while Shylock

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is out banqueting, much against
his will and inclination,

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with Antonio and his
friends to seal their deal.

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We do well to remember
that Shylock, and perhaps

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Shakespeare too, understands
his vengefulness towards Antonio

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as a universal reaction to
persecution, not a Jewish one.

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"If you prick us,
do we not bleed?

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If you tickle us,
do we not laugh?

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If you poison us, do we not die?

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And if you wrong us,
do we not revenge?"

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The common belief
among Shakespeare

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and his contemporaries was
that the humors served the body

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as its weapons against attack.

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In Shylock's view
here, revenge becomes

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as natural and
involuntary as bleeding.

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The body's choler thus protected
it against injury from without

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and gave an individual the
anger and determination

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to satisfy its body's
natural appetite for revenge.

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Portia recognizes the
naturalness of Shylock's rage

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later in the long courtroom
scene in act four when she

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argues that Shylock cannot
be compelled to be merciful.

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Even as Shylock whets
his knife in anticipation

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of cutting a pound of
Antonio's flesh

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"taken nearest his heart."

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The Venetians
assembled in court seem

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to believe that it would
be unnatural for anyone

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to insist on such a payment.

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To stand by while a
Venetian merchant is

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butchered before a crowd
of helpless onlookers.

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They believe that pity in
such circumstances, tender

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heartedness, is a natural
embodied emotion in response

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to the spectacle of suffering.

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The Duke tells Shylock he
finds his cruelty strange.

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The Duke declares
that once Shylock

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is "touched with
gentleness and love"

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he will forego the cruel
bond and even forgive

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a portion of it.

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Shylock denies the
Duke's expectation

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of the naturalness of mercy in
the strongest possible terms.

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On the grounds that his hatred
for Antonio is itself natural,

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rooted in his body like a
humor, or even a deadly allergy.

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"So I can give no
reason, nor I will not,

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more than a logit hate
and a certain loathing

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I bear Antonio."

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Portia, interestingly
enough, agrees with him

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in her famous speech.

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"The quality of mercy
is not strained,"

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she says, "it dropeth as
the gentle rain from heaven

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upon the place beneath.

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The place beneath, here,
is the heart of Shylock.

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And it has proved itself
too hard, too dry,

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to be affected and
moistened by the tenderizing

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action of mercy."

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And thus Portia is
constrained, as we know,

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to find a legal remedy.

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Even, we might say,
a legal quibble

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to rescue Antonio
from Shylock's knife.

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We see a very different
action of the melancholy humor

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in Hamlet.

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Certainly in Hamlet
himself, but even more

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clearly in the
behavior of Ophelia.

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Not just later when she
has gone mad, but right

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from the start of the play.

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I have found the most
illuminating context

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for understanding of
failure in human terms

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in Robert Burton's encyclopedic
Anatomy of Melancholy, which

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you'll see in the exhibition.

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Burton, as you'll
recall, responded

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to his own lifelong
experience of melancholy

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and his tragic view
of life by describing

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what he saw as melancholy's
various incarnations.

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Which of course, as he
continues to write, grow

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and grow and grow and grow.

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He became in the process
among the first systematizers

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of human neurosis.

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And The Anatomy of
Melancholy is well worth

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reading on that basis alone.

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What is remarkable
is how closely

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his description of the
melancholy suffered by virgins

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fits Ophelia's behavior
and circumstances

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in the course of the play.

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It is perhaps even
more important

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to appreciate how comprehensive
his account of her symptoms is.

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For such comprehensiveness
is characteristic

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of Galenic humoralism.

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And it goes a long way toward
explaining the diagnostic power

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of the humors throughout
the long centuries

17:45.500 --> 17:47.733
of its dominance.

17:47.733 --> 17:50.999
Burton carefully
explains that the causes

17:51.000 --> 17:55.966
of virgin's melancholy
are social, environmental,

17:55.966 --> 17:57.999
and physical.

17:58.000 --> 18:00.933
He explains why it
seems, especially,

18:00.933 --> 18:04.266
to afflict women of
the upper classes.

18:04.266 --> 18:07.299
The physical symptoms
are unalleviated

18:07.300 --> 18:10.633
sexual and social
frustration, the result

18:10.633 --> 18:14.333
of an accumulation "of
vicious vapors which

18:14.333 --> 18:17.866
come from the menstrual blood."

18:17.866 --> 18:21.932
Menstrual blood, cold
and moist, was widely

18:21.933 --> 18:24.466
thought to be blood
left over in the body

18:24.466 --> 18:27.366
every month from a lack
of physical activity

18:27.366 --> 18:31.466
and thus expelled.

18:31.466 --> 18:35.632
Because an excess of
cold, moist vapors

18:35.633 --> 18:37.999
could be dissipated
by the warming

18:38.000 --> 18:41.466
and drying effects
of physical labor,

18:41.466 --> 18:44.732
virgin's melancholy was
hardly ever experienced

18:44.733 --> 18:48.166
by lower class women.

18:48.166 --> 18:53.266
"Seldom shall you see a hired
servant," Burton writes,

18:53.266 --> 18:55.999
"a poor handmaid,
though ancient,

18:56.000 --> 18:59.300
that is kept hard to her
work in bodily labor,

18:59.300 --> 19:04.500
a coarse country wench
troubled in this kind."

19:04.500 --> 19:06.933
The heat produced
by the laboring body

19:06.933 --> 19:10.333
and its consumption of
extra menstrual blood

19:10.333 --> 19:15.433
would warm and thin the
low born virgin's blood.

19:15.433 --> 19:20.333
Virgin's melancholy thus
belongs to "noble virgins.

19:20.333 --> 19:25.266
Nice, gentlewomen such
as our solitary and idle,

19:25.266 --> 19:29.966
live at ease, lead a life
out of action and employment,

19:29.966 --> 19:32.199
that fare well in
great houses"-- that

19:32.200 --> 19:33.833
means that eat well.

19:33.833 --> 19:37.033
That if they eat well,
then they create more blood

19:37.033 --> 19:38.166
in their bodies.

19:38.166 --> 19:40.332
And so then that would
just build up too.

19:40.333 --> 19:44.266
So eating well, very bad,
very bad thing to eat well.

19:44.266 --> 19:47.732
"That fare well in great houses
and jovial companies,

19:47.733 --> 19:50.833
ill disposed peradventure
of themselves,

19:50.833 --> 19:55.066
and not willing to make a
resistance of weak judgment,

19:55.066 --> 19:59.499
able bodies, and
subject to passion."

19:59.500 --> 20:02.300
For wellborn virgins
like Ophelia,

20:02.300 --> 20:04.933
the cards were
stacked against them.

20:04.933 --> 20:08.666
The lack of social purpose
and meaningful activity

20:08.666 --> 20:11.599
become the crucial
environmental factors

20:11.600 --> 20:16.800
contributing to the onset and
intensity of their melancholy.

20:16.800 --> 20:21.533
In their sadness, Burton sees
the action of their humors.

20:21.533 --> 20:23.866
Thus Burton expresses
pity for women

20:23.866 --> 20:28.666
who "out of a strong temperament
are violently carried away

20:28.666 --> 20:31.066
with this torrent
of inward humors.

20:31.066 --> 20:35.832
And though very modest of
themselves, sober, religious,

20:35.833 --> 20:40.633
virtuous, and well given,
yet cannot make resistance

20:40.633 --> 20:43.866
to melancholy."

20:43.866 --> 20:45.966
In order to explain
virgin's melancholy,

20:45.966 --> 20:49.866
then, Burton constructs
a full spectrum

20:49.866 --> 20:56.399
of mutually reinforcing factors
of body, culture, class,

20:56.400 --> 20:58.633
weather, and so on.

20:58.633 --> 21:04.733
Bodily humors, bodily organs,
size, winds, distempers,

21:04.733 --> 21:10.299
high birth, idle living, lack
of occupation, lots of eating,

21:10.300 --> 21:14.700
parents, guardians, and
enforced vows of chastity

21:14.700 --> 21:18.466
meet to act upon
the female sufferer.

21:18.466 --> 21:21.766
Mind and body suffer in union.

21:21.766 --> 21:24.866
Social and cultural
factors outside the body

21:24.866 --> 21:27.732
work together with
humors and passions

21:27.733 --> 21:32.866
inside the body to produce
melancholy distress.

21:32.866 --> 21:37.732
Prescribed cures ranged
from diet, phlebotomy--

21:37.733 --> 21:41.699
right, open a vein, get rid
of all that built up blood--

21:41.700 --> 21:44.400
and purgative physic.

21:44.400 --> 21:46.800
On the one hand, to the
emotional disciplines

21:46.800 --> 21:52.100
of religion and the overarching
social remedy, "to see them

21:52.100 --> 21:58.766
well-placed and married to
good husbands in due time."

21:58.766 --> 22:02.132
What good husbands provided,
Burton would argue,

22:02.133 --> 22:07.433
is not only the warming effects
of regular sexual activity

22:07.433 --> 22:11.599
but also the social purpose
conveyed in marriage.

22:11.600 --> 22:14.233
It is the social
command and prestige

22:14.233 --> 22:17.133
of marriage, the
responsibility to manage

22:17.133 --> 22:21.066
a household of servants,
which melancholy virgins so

22:21.066 --> 22:23.499
conspicuously lack.

22:23.500 --> 22:26.233
So it is with poor Ophelia.

22:26.233 --> 22:29.166
Deprived of the good
effects of physical labor

22:29.166 --> 22:33.332
by the high birth which
condemns her to inactivity.

22:33.333 --> 22:36.666
Deprived of the good
effects of sexual activity

22:36.666 --> 22:39.299
by the constraints
of the sexual code

22:39.300 --> 22:43.333
and the failure of her
romance with Hamlet.

22:43.333 --> 22:45.566
Although, I will
say parenthetically

22:45.566 --> 22:48.799
when I was teaching
my students totally

22:48.800 --> 22:52.333
disbelieved that Ophelia
and Hamlet did not have sex.

22:52.333 --> 22:55.666
Could not persuade them
that this would not

22:55.666 --> 22:58.466
have happened because
they had seen the movie.

22:58.466 --> 23:02.832
[Laughter]

23:02.833 --> 23:07.099
OK, deprived of the good
effects of sexual activity

23:07.100 --> 23:10.200
by the failure of her
romance with Hamlet,

23:10.200 --> 23:13.700
deprived of social purpose
by her isolation, lack

23:13.700 --> 23:16.933
of employment, and the
humiliating reproofs

23:16.933 --> 23:19.833
aimed in her direction
by father, brother,

23:19.833 --> 23:21.799
and embittered lover.

23:21.800 --> 23:26.733
She is in much worse
shape than Desdemona,

23:26.733 --> 23:29.899
who at least gets to run
her father's household.

23:29.900 --> 23:36.000
Every time Desdemona
wanders in to hear

23:36.000 --> 23:39.866
Othello's great tale, household
affairs, says Othello,

23:39.866 --> 23:41.132
would draw her thence.

23:41.133 --> 23:44.533
And then she would greedily
run back to hear him.

23:44.533 --> 23:50.999
And, as he says devour
up his discourse.

23:51.000 --> 23:54.200
Ophelia, also motherless
like Desdemona,

23:54.200 --> 23:57.466
is not Gertrude's
lady in waiting.

23:57.466 --> 23:59.832
She is no one's companion.

23:59.833 --> 24:03.166
She seems to have no
companions of her own.

24:03.166 --> 24:06.932
And she seems to have
no meaningful activity

24:06.933 --> 24:10.466
except whatever is assigned
to her by her conniving

24:10.466 --> 24:12.199
father in Claudius.

24:12.200 --> 24:17.500
Like pretending to walk in
the aisle, walk in the lobby,

24:17.500 --> 24:19.800
and read a book of
prayers in order

24:19.800 --> 24:22.233
to draw Hamlet
into conversation,

24:22.233 --> 24:24.866
return his letters,
and be overheard

24:24.866 --> 24:28.232
by Polonius and the King.

24:28.233 --> 24:31.499
Burton would have thoroughly
understood her depression

24:31.500 --> 24:35.466
and recognized its causes.

24:35.466 --> 24:39.399
"Must I need inveigh against
them that are in fault

24:39.400 --> 24:43.400
and as bitterly tax
those pseudo politicians,

24:43.400 --> 24:45.966
superstitious orders"--

24:45.966 --> 24:49.832
nuns, religious orders--
"rash vows, hard hearted

24:49.833 --> 24:53.333
parents, guardians,
unnatural friends

24:53.333 --> 24:58.266
that out of worldly respects,
covetousness, supine,

24:58.266 --> 25:04.866
negligence their own private
ends can so severely reject,

25:04.866 --> 25:10.366
stubbornly neglect, and
impiously condemn the tears,

25:10.366 --> 25:16.432
sighs, groans, and grievous
miseries of such poor souls

25:16.433 --> 25:20.466
committed to their charge."

25:20.466 --> 25:25.132
Of course, Ophelia's melancholy
is itself contextualized

25:25.133 --> 25:29.966
and compounded by the larger
political tragedy playing out

25:29.966 --> 25:31.732
around her.

25:31.733 --> 25:34.499
Let us not forget
that Hamlet too

25:34.500 --> 25:38.300
is deprived of social purpose
by his uncle's accession

25:38.300 --> 25:42.733
to the throne, his inability
to return to his studies

25:42.733 --> 25:46.166
at Wittenberg, and the
cynical surveillance he

25:46.166 --> 25:48.232
is subjected to.

25:48.233 --> 25:52.433
Like Ophelia he is
isolated and depressed.

25:52.433 --> 25:57.099
And like her, too, he is
threatened with madness.

25:57.100 --> 26:00.433
And once Hamlet
murders Polonius--

26:00.433 --> 26:03.833
more or less accidentally--

26:03.833 --> 26:09.199
Ophelia has no family
and no confidant.

26:09.200 --> 26:12.100
Because her father's
death is hushed up

26:12.100 --> 26:15.033
and her brother is
away in Paris there

26:15.033 --> 26:19.299
is no ritual outlet
or ceremonial occasion

26:19.300 --> 26:20.933
for her grief.

26:20.933 --> 26:24.899
And she lacks the power
to demand such tribute

26:24.900 --> 26:27.233
to her father.

26:27.233 --> 26:31.799
That such lonely suffering and
inability to express herself

26:31.800 --> 26:34.066
would lead to madness.

26:34.066 --> 26:36.566
And that only
madness would allow

26:36.566 --> 26:39.166
her to express her
grief is hardly

26:39.166 --> 26:42.399
surprising under
such circumstances.

26:42.400 --> 26:44.733
For Shakespeare's
contemporaries,

26:44.733 --> 26:50.799
that madness involved literally
a darkening of her spirits.

26:50.800 --> 26:55.666
The clouding, through grief,
of the fluids that ran

26:55.666 --> 26:58.399
through her neural pathways.

26:58.400 --> 27:01.333
Hence the confusion
of her speech.

27:01.333 --> 27:04.433
The inability to
moderate her speech.

27:04.433 --> 27:08.499
And her confused
understanding of where she is.

27:08.500 --> 27:12.766
Such a picture of madness
leads to the dramatic irony

27:12.766 --> 27:15.432
of her allusions
in her mad scenes

27:15.433 --> 27:19.999
to the cooling moistening
plants, especially pansies

27:20.000 --> 27:24.066
and violets that would
have been used medicinally

27:24.066 --> 27:29.699
to treat the hot dryness
of her maddened brain.

27:29.700 --> 27:32.966
"I would give you some
violets," she tells Laertes

27:32.966 --> 27:35.366
after his return,
but pathetically

27:35.366 --> 27:38.466
without recognizing
him, "but they withered

27:38.466 --> 27:41.966
all when my father died."

27:41.966 --> 27:46.232
When Claudia's calls her madness
"the poison of deep grief,"

27:46.233 --> 27:48.699
the reference is
literal to grief

27:48.700 --> 27:53.133
understood as humoral imbalance,
both psychological and

27:53.133 --> 27:56.699
physiological in nature.

27:56.700 --> 27:59.466
Claudius and Gertrude
regard Ophelia's madness

27:59.466 --> 28:05.232
as politically dangerous since
her confused and inappropriate

28:05.233 --> 28:09.399
discourse causes "dangerous
conjectures in ill breeding

28:09.400 --> 28:11.900
minds."

28:11.900 --> 28:14.566
But even before her
madness, I would argue,

28:14.566 --> 28:17.532
Shakespeare presents
the melancholic Ophelia

28:17.533 --> 28:21.799
as a social problem in
Burton's humoral terms.

28:21.800 --> 28:25.266
In her disordered world,
she lacks reason to live.

28:25.266 --> 28:26.832
And her suicide, then--

28:26.833 --> 28:28.699
if that's what it is--

28:28.700 --> 28:32.966
has to be seen less as a
direct symptom of her madness

28:32.966 --> 28:36.732
than as an indirect symptom
of her vulnerability

28:36.733 --> 28:40.633
to emotional extremes
as an unmarried maiden

28:40.633 --> 28:45.499
lacking the social protection
of mother, father, brother

28:45.500 --> 28:46.700
or lover.

28:46.700 --> 28:49.733
And without any
authority or power

28:49.733 --> 28:54.166
to alter or improve
her circumstances.

28:54.166 --> 28:57.832
Shakespeare's contemporaries
believed, generally,

28:57.833 --> 29:02.299
in the humoral propensity of
women to emotional extremes.

29:02.300 --> 29:06.100
Usually the inconstancy
and volatility

29:06.100 --> 29:09.900
associated with the
phlegmatic temperament.

29:09.900 --> 29:12.900
In The Taming of the
Shrew, in contrast,

29:12.900 --> 29:15.833
it is the action
of female choler

29:15.833 --> 29:18.966
that is seen as a problem
for social management.

29:18.966 --> 29:23.166
As Kate Minola refuses to
accept the subordination

29:23.166 --> 29:26.399
and submission
required of her sex.

29:26.400 --> 29:30.966
As with Shylock, Shakespeare
was careful to present a myriad

29:30.966 --> 29:33.532
of causes for Kate's choler.

29:33.533 --> 29:37.466
Her father's preference for
her pliant sister, Bianca.

29:37.466 --> 29:39.466
Her father's willingness
to pay anyone

29:39.466 --> 29:43.432
who will take the angry
older sister off his hands.

29:43.433 --> 29:46.899
And the general mockery that
her stubbornness and choler

29:46.900 --> 29:50.833
receive from the
men in her world.

29:50.833 --> 29:53.999
Generally Shakespeare
portrays warm-bloodedness

29:54.000 --> 29:59.400
in women and the boldness that
comes with it as a consequence

29:59.400 --> 30:02.966
and function of romantic love.

30:02.966 --> 30:06.332
Consider the contrast in
Othello between the portrait

30:06.333 --> 30:10.133
that Brabontio gives of
his daughter Desdemona.

30:10.133 --> 30:14.533
"Of spirit so still and
quiet that her motion blushed

30:14.533 --> 30:16.999
at herself"-- he means
emotion, that her emotion

30:17.000 --> 30:19.466
blushed at herself."

30:19.466 --> 30:22.566
And then there is the
bold, married Desdemona

30:22.566 --> 30:25.866
who comes before the
Venetian Senate to declare,

30:25.866 --> 30:28.899
"that I did love the
more to live with him,

30:28.900 --> 30:32.066
my downright violence
and storm of fortunes

30:32.066 --> 30:35.266
may trumpet to the world."

30:35.266 --> 30:39.032
Or consider the contrast between
the depressed, disinherited

30:39.033 --> 30:43.399
Rosalind at the beginning
of As You Like It.

30:43.400 --> 30:46.600
Lacking meaningful
activity, deprived

30:46.600 --> 30:50.300
of the prospect of marriage
by her jealous uncle,

30:50.300 --> 30:54.000
deprived of the prospect of
inheriting her father's kingdom

30:54.000 --> 30:58.200
by the usurpation of her uncle.

30:58.200 --> 30:59.666
In fact, what she's
really looking

30:59.666 --> 31:03.066
forward to is that
her cousin, Celia--

31:03.066 --> 31:08.132
who's the heir now to the
usurping Duke's dukedom--

31:08.133 --> 31:11.166
that it's Celia
who'll get married.

31:11.166 --> 31:14.566
The Duke, if he has
any wits about him,

31:14.566 --> 31:17.866
wouldn't let Rosalind
get near a suitor

31:17.866 --> 31:23.099
and become a threat to his rule.

31:23.100 --> 31:25.100
Consider that
figure that we meet

31:25.100 --> 31:28.500
at the beginning of the play and
the merry, crossdressed figure

31:28.500 --> 31:32.300
who we meet in the forest of
Arden, who says to her lover,

31:32.300 --> 31:37.400
"come woo me, woo me, for I am
now in a holiday humor and life

31:37.400 --> 31:40.333
enough to consent."

31:40.333 --> 31:44.266
Or consider the contrast
between the dutiful Juliet who

31:44.266 --> 31:49.732
promises her parents "to look
to like if looking liking move."

31:49.733 --> 31:53.066
In other words, I'll try
to like Paris, she says.

31:53.066 --> 31:56.966
And the bold Juliet who
contracts a secret marriage

31:56.966 --> 31:58.932
and arranges for
its consummation.

31:58.933 --> 32:01.866
Meet me at 9 o'clock
at the Friars.

32:01.866 --> 32:06.632
These are Shakespearean
norms for female behavior

32:06.633 --> 32:09.166
in the throes of sexual passion.

32:09.166 --> 32:12.399
And such female
boldness and warmth

32:12.400 --> 32:16.533
is both justified and
contained by marriage

32:16.533 --> 32:21.033
and the prestige and social
purpose conferred by it.

32:21.033 --> 32:25.199
Kate Minola is an atypical
Shakespearean heroine

32:25.200 --> 32:28.800
from the start because
her warmth and boldness

32:28.800 --> 32:32.833
are manifest in the
absence of sexual desire.

32:32.833 --> 32:37.699
And thus count as socially
disruptive female choler.

32:37.700 --> 32:42.000
Her reputation for stubbornness,
rude speech, and anger

32:42.000 --> 32:44.233
make her something
of a laughing stock

32:44.233 --> 32:47.699
and render her unmarriagable.

32:47.700 --> 32:50.166
Shakespeare thus
sets up a situation

32:50.166 --> 32:53.499
in which only a
lover equal to Kate

32:53.500 --> 32:58.833
in the choleric temperament will
be able to manage her socially.

32:58.833 --> 33:02.433
Both Kate and Petruchio
are given to violence

33:02.433 --> 33:04.299
throughout the play.

33:04.300 --> 33:07.600
Both take delight
in crossing others,

33:07.600 --> 33:11.200
that is to say they like
fighting, they like combat.

33:11.200 --> 33:13.366
They are both nonconformist.

33:13.366 --> 33:16.499
Petruchio, for example,
flouting social norms

33:16.500 --> 33:18.333
by beating his servant.

33:18.333 --> 33:22.699
And flouting custom by refusing
to disguise his purely economic

33:22.700 --> 33:25.000
motives in choosing a bride.

33:25.000 --> 33:28.600
"I come to wive it
wealthily in Padua;

33:28.600 --> 33:32.900
if wealthily, then
happily in Padua."

33:32.900 --> 33:35.333
He declares that even
a wife "as curst

33:35.333 --> 33:37.833
and shrewd as
Socrates' Xanthippe

33:37.833 --> 33:42.233
will not remove
affections edge in me."

33:42.233 --> 33:45.733
His hot disposition is
thus established well

33:45.733 --> 33:49.599
before his knowledge of the
rich Kate's availability

33:49.600 --> 33:53.066
and her own choleric
temperament.

33:53.066 --> 33:57.432
Their tempers become rich
comic material for the Paduans

33:57.433 --> 33:59.899
as they anticipate
the combativeness

33:59.900 --> 34:04.200
of this choleric
courtship and marriage.

34:04.200 --> 34:09.333
But we need to understand
that it is only Kate's choler,

34:09.333 --> 34:14.299
not Petruchio's, that is
seen as a social problem.

34:14.300 --> 34:17.766
In the terms of early
modern humoralism,

34:17.766 --> 34:21.766
his choler will provide the
strength and determination

34:21.766 --> 34:26.099
to take on the task
of managing a wife.

34:26.100 --> 34:31.633
In this case, to take on the
task of lowering her socially

34:31.633 --> 34:34.999
inappropriate female
heat to the more

34:35.000 --> 34:39.500
temperate thermal
registers required

34:39.500 --> 34:43.600
of the properly socialized wife.

34:43.600 --> 34:47.533
That is to say,
Patricio is encouraged

34:47.533 --> 34:52.599
to make his choler socially
productive by directing it

34:52.600 --> 34:57.466
against an even less socialized
even more disruptive person

34:57.466 --> 35:00.399
than he is himself.

35:00.400 --> 35:03.100
Petruchio presents
his taming project

35:03.100 --> 35:07.533
as one of patient labor in
the wholesale manipulation

35:07.533 --> 35:11.933
of Kate's environment in
order to unsettle her relation

35:11.933 --> 35:14.799
to the world and
make her realize

35:14.800 --> 35:18.233
her powerlessness as his wife.

35:18.233 --> 35:21.399
He shames her at their
wedding by showing up

35:21.400 --> 35:23.500
in a state of undress.

35:23.500 --> 35:25.700
And takes her away
without allowing

35:25.700 --> 35:29.000
her to celebrate the
wedding banquet that

35:29.000 --> 35:32.400
is her great moment in the sun.

35:32.400 --> 35:34.966
He isolates her
socially by hauling her

35:34.966 --> 35:39.766
off to his country estate and
allowing her no authority there

35:39.766 --> 35:42.799
as his mistress.

35:42.800 --> 35:48.333
In Elizabethan social life,
particularly in town life

35:48.333 --> 35:52.233
or village life,
there were no laws

35:52.233 --> 35:55.933
that prevented a man
from beating up his wife.

35:55.933 --> 35:58.699
But there were
social norms in place

35:58.700 --> 36:01.666
that allowed a man to
beat her up a little,

36:01.666 --> 36:04.532
but not to beat her up a lot.

36:04.533 --> 36:10.199
And once the sense of social
norms had been violated,

36:10.200 --> 36:12.600
the community would take
action against the husband

36:12.600 --> 36:16.500
and let him know that
he had offended them.

36:16.500 --> 36:20.400
And was continuing to offend
them by behaving so brutally.

36:20.400 --> 36:22.966
Petruchio takes Kate
off to his estate.

36:22.966 --> 36:26.132
There is no operative
social norms,

36:26.133 --> 36:27.966
and she has nobody there.

36:27.966 --> 36:30.099
She has no maidservants,
she has no companions,

36:30.100 --> 36:33.400
she has nobody to
stand against him

36:33.400 --> 36:38.200
in his manipulation of her and
his wielding of this authority.

36:38.200 --> 36:40.500
Something he could
not even begin

36:40.500 --> 36:44.166
to get away with in Padua.

36:44.166 --> 36:46.799
He deprives her of the
pleasure of new clothes,

36:46.800 --> 36:50.033
he flings the bedclothes
around the room in a fury.

36:50.033 --> 36:56.099
He withholds food from her,
drink, exercise, and sleep.

36:56.100 --> 36:58.200
And here he is
quite apparently--

36:58.200 --> 37:01.033
and it would have been very
obvious to any Elizabethan--

37:01.033 --> 37:04.966
he's using as his guide
for the taming manipulation

37:04.966 --> 37:07.232
of the Galactic six natural's.

37:07.233 --> 37:12.299
That is to say the
six things in the body

37:12.300 --> 37:15.400
and in a world that
determine a person's health.

37:15.400 --> 37:21.633
And they were diet,
sleep, evacuation--

37:21.633 --> 37:24.566
that is to say getting
rid of the nasty substance

37:24.566 --> 37:26.066
in your body--

37:26.066 --> 37:28.066
exercise, air, and the passions.

37:28.066 --> 37:32.866
And so what he basically does is
manipulate all of those things

37:32.866 --> 37:37.799
in order to purge
her of her choler.

37:37.800 --> 37:42.566
It is only when she fully
submits to his will--

37:42.566 --> 37:45.732
fully submits her
will to his even

37:45.733 --> 37:49.733
to the extent of allowing him
to tell her what to call the sun

37:49.733 --> 37:53.899
and the moon that he is willing
to concede that the timing is

37:53.900 --> 37:58.466
over and that Kate is no
longer a shrew but a properly

37:58.466 --> 38:02.132
submissive wife.

38:02.133 --> 38:06.299
Taming Kate offers
Petruchio the opportunity

38:06.300 --> 38:10.866
to alter himself
materially in two ways.

38:10.866 --> 38:14.032
The social alteration
derived from marriage

38:14.033 --> 38:16.033
to a wealthy heiress.

38:16.033 --> 38:21.099
And the physical alteration
of expending excessive choler

38:21.100 --> 38:26.566
against a socially sanctioned
target, the choleric woman.

38:26.566 --> 38:30.666
In the taming plot,
both Kate and Petruchio

38:30.666 --> 38:34.366
undergo humoral manipulation.

38:34.366 --> 38:37.666
But only one of them
undergoes the course

38:37.666 --> 38:41.999
of these multiple
deprivations voluntarily.

38:42.000 --> 38:48.766
And only the reformation of
the woman is called a taming.

38:48.766 --> 38:51.866
Petruchio's apparently
successful alteration

38:51.866 --> 38:58.499
of her humorality expands
from being a crude caricature

38:58.500 --> 39:02.700
of the customary
socialization of women

39:02.700 --> 39:08.800
to being a fantasy of ownership
of her whole bodily substance

39:08.800 --> 39:11.433
from inside out.

39:11.433 --> 39:16.599
His goal is thus not to
reform her humorality,

39:16.600 --> 39:19.500
but virtually to erase it.

39:19.500 --> 39:22.566
To take away her
independent ability

39:22.566 --> 39:27.399
to appraise and interact
in characteristic fashion

39:27.400 --> 39:29.066
with her environment.

39:29.066 --> 39:33.666
And that is what the
humors were all about.

39:33.666 --> 39:36.032
They made you who you were.

39:36.033 --> 39:38.399
They made you what you were.

39:38.400 --> 39:44.100
And they gave you the tools that
you needed to appraise threats,

39:44.100 --> 39:48.500
to understand what pleased
you, to go for what pleased you

39:48.500 --> 39:51.400
and flee from what
displeased you.

39:51.400 --> 39:55.133
And to be recognizable
to the world

39:55.133 --> 39:59.266
as a consistent and
stable personality.

39:59.266 --> 40:04.232
Kate becomes a woman neither
in nor out of her humor,

40:04.233 --> 40:10.133
but a woman without a
distinctive humor at all.

40:10.133 --> 40:12.266
In all three
Shakespeare characters,

40:12.266 --> 40:16.099
the humors offer us a
contemporary's understanding

40:16.100 --> 40:23.266
of how human beings experience
hope, fear, grief, and love.

40:23.266 --> 40:27.099
How they understand threat
and appraise self-interest,

40:27.100 --> 40:30.400
how they come to have a
recognizable and characteristic

40:30.400 --> 40:32.500
disposition.

40:32.500 --> 40:36.633
By creating such vivid
characters as Shylock, Ophelia,

40:36.633 --> 40:39.766
and Kate, and allowing
us to understand

40:39.766 --> 40:44.366
what drives their behaviors in
a dramatic language informed

40:44.366 --> 40:46.899
by Galenic humoralism,
Shakespeare

40:46.900 --> 40:51.800
gives us reason, once again,
to see the explanatory power

40:51.800 --> 40:56.500
of blood, choler, phlegm,
and, above and above all,

40:56.500 --> 40:57.833
melancholy.

40:57.833 --> 40:58.933
Thank you.

40:58.933 --> 41:06.366
[Applause]

41:06.366 --> 41:09.032
[...]

41:09.033 --> 41:11.899
I'm happy to take
questions, Yeah.

41:11.900 --> 41:17.300
[Silence]

41:17.300 --> 41:20.533
Absolutely, I'm
happy to do that.

41:20.533 --> 41:21.033
Yeah.

41:21.033 --> 41:30.399
[Inaudible, Microphone not turned on]

41:30.400 --> 41:32.266
[Gail Kern Paster:] Yes, his sadness.

41:32.266 --> 41:46.732
[Inaudible]

41:46.733 --> 41:48.933
[Gail Kern Paster:] Well, that's a
really good question.

41:48.933 --> 41:51.999
And the answer to why
I didn't talk about it

41:52.000 --> 42:02.166
was that he's not featured
in the exhibition. [Laughter]

42:02.166 --> 42:06.399
It seems to me that
there's a strategy

42:06.400 --> 42:11.400
always for finding the humors.

42:11.400 --> 42:18.266
And obviously the first
trigger for reading humorally,

42:18.266 --> 42:20.366
for reading a
humorous discourse.

42:20.366 --> 42:24.266
Because I am not
at all suggesting

42:24.266 --> 42:30.099
that this is the master code,
that it unlocks everything.

42:30.100 --> 42:33.433
What I am suggesting, that
it is a code, that it's

42:33.433 --> 42:37.366
a code largely opaque
and unknown to us.

42:37.366 --> 42:44.366
And that if you can unpack it,
and if you can decipher it,

42:44.366 --> 42:48.332
that it produces results.

42:48.333 --> 42:53.799
So if the first instance
is that you need someone

42:53.800 --> 42:55.833
to say they have an emotion--

42:55.833 --> 42:57.866
right, they're
sad-- then I think

42:57.866 --> 43:03.599
the second trigger is for
when that emotion is described

43:03.600 --> 43:06.733
in physical bodily terms.

43:06.733 --> 43:11.733
So in the case of Shylock--

43:11.733 --> 43:17.233
Bassanio in the courtroom
scene talks about the current

43:17.233 --> 43:18.899
of your cruelty.

43:18.900 --> 43:20.933
Well, that's not a metaphor.

43:20.933 --> 43:23.666
What he really means is
the current of your choler.

43:23.666 --> 43:26.266
Why are you being so choleric?

43:26.266 --> 43:29.666
Why is your choler
so unrelenting

43:29.666 --> 43:35.932
when here is poor
helpless Antonio exposed

43:35.933 --> 43:37.566
to your vengefulness.

43:37.566 --> 43:41.499
Isn't it natural for you-- as
I was suggesting in the talk--

43:41.500 --> 43:45.833
isn't it natural for you for
your heart, your hard heart,

43:45.833 --> 43:48.399
to moisten.

43:48.400 --> 43:51.133
So in that sense what
I'm always looking

43:51.133 --> 43:56.566
for is the language of the
qualities of hot, cold, moist,

43:56.566 --> 44:01.499
dry in order to invite
me, or invite anybody,

44:01.500 --> 44:04.166
to read humorally.

44:04.166 --> 44:09.366
Now, that hasn't
answered your question.

44:09.366 --> 44:12.799
And so what I said
at the very beginning

44:12.800 --> 44:19.966
was that the humors explain
the how of the emotions.

44:19.966 --> 44:24.032
But they don't always
explain the why.

44:24.033 --> 44:33.333
In other words, why are Goneril
and Regan so hard hearted?

44:33.333 --> 44:34.866
OK.

44:34.866 --> 44:36.966
I mean, the answer is
sort of tautological.

44:36.966 --> 44:39.032
They're hard hearted because
they're hard hearted.

44:39.033 --> 44:40.799
I mean, if you said
why are they so cruel?

44:40.800 --> 44:42.733
Then you could say, well,
they're hard hearted.

44:42.733 --> 44:44.666
But if you ask the
second question, why are

44:44.666 --> 44:48.299
they so hard hearted
when Cordelia is not?

44:48.300 --> 44:50.633
The humors don't really give
you the answer for that.

44:50.633 --> 44:53.566
Because at the end of
the day, the Elizabethans

44:53.566 --> 44:56.532
would have said
something like, God.

44:56.533 --> 44:58.199
You know, that's the why.

44:58.200 --> 45:01.033
The why is a vertical
answer, if you will.

45:01.033 --> 45:02.799
But I still haven't
answered your question.

45:02.800 --> 45:06.833
And in fact, I do have
sort of an answer.

45:06.833 --> 45:09.166
Because the mystery
of Antonio's sadness

45:09.166 --> 45:11.966
and the fact of his
sadness are the things

45:11.966 --> 45:14.766
that we hear about at the
very beginning that play.

45:14.766 --> 45:20.032
And his melancholy-- you
know, it's interesting

45:20.033 --> 45:24.033
because I haven't really
traced the language

45:24.033 --> 45:25.466
that his melancholy
is represented

45:25.466 --> 45:27.666
in through the play, it
would be an interesting thing

45:27.666 --> 45:28.866
to do that.

45:28.866 --> 45:33.899
Because it's very much
his melancholy which--

45:33.900 --> 45:38.500
and the passivity that
that melancholy produces

45:38.500 --> 45:43.933
that leads him to the courtroom
and basically says, OK,

45:43.933 --> 45:44.899
kill me.

45:44.900 --> 45:47.566
Here I am, the tainted
weather of the flock.

45:47.566 --> 45:51.666
I'm the one [?] to die.

45:51.666 --> 45:57.266
Which is very unusual because
by then he's lost his fortune

45:57.266 --> 45:58.766
and he can't repay the debt.

45:58.766 --> 46:01.999
[...]

46:02.000 --> 46:06.000
But the bigger mystery is one
that Shakespeare doesn't really

46:06.000 --> 46:06.500
answer.

46:06.500 --> 46:08.600
And critics of course have.

46:08.600 --> 46:11.366
Is he melancholy
because he's melancholy,

46:11.366 --> 46:15.232
or is he melancholy because
he's in love with Antonio

46:15.233 --> 46:18.666
and is going to
lose him to Portia?

46:18.666 --> 46:22.299
And for many of us that
is the compelling answer

46:22.300 --> 46:24.233
because, of course, in
all of the couplings

46:24.233 --> 46:29.233
at the end of the play
he's the one who's left.

46:29.233 --> 46:34.899
And that his aloneness
his isolation

46:34.900 --> 46:37.800
is really identified at the
very beginning of the play

46:37.800 --> 46:41.600
by all these guys who
don't understand it.

46:41.600 --> 46:43.033
Who don't understand him.

46:43.033 --> 46:46.666
He's a real mystery.

46:46.666 --> 46:48.132
Long answer, sorry.

46:48.133 --> 47:04.466
[Silence, camera pans crowd
for another question]

47:04.466 --> 47:05.332
Yeah, Michael.

47:05.333 --> 47:06.066
[Michael:] Hi.

47:06.066 --> 47:09.266
Perhaps you could tell
us a little bit more

47:09.266 --> 47:11.732
about the process
of putting together

47:11.733 --> 47:15.899
the exhibition and some
of the books you selected.

47:15.900 --> 47:22.400
Of course, The Anatomy
of Melancholy is there

47:22.400 --> 47:26.166
and maybe you could comment
on some of the other items.

47:26.166 --> 47:31.566
[Gail Kern Paster:] Well, the typology
of the four temperaments,

47:31.566 --> 47:36.999
of blood, phlegm,
choler, and melancholy,

47:37.000 --> 47:40.433
is set out by the emblems
at the very beginning.

47:40.433 --> 47:44.133
And I invite you to
take a look at them.

47:44.133 --> 47:46.699
The medieval woodcuts
in particular,

47:46.700 --> 47:48.733
even as crude as
they are visually,

47:48.733 --> 47:51.566
are very interesting from an
interpretive point of view.

47:51.566 --> 47:54.966
Because what they
give you are couples.

47:54.966 --> 48:01.266
And some of the couples, for
example the emblem of choler,

48:01.266 --> 48:03.666
has a furious man
beating a woman.

48:03.666 --> 48:05.666
Well obviously, he's
the choleric one.

48:05.666 --> 48:08.566
You know, she's helpless,
she's not choleric.

48:08.566 --> 48:11.666
She's being beaten to a pulp.

48:11.666 --> 48:14.099
So that's his temperament.

48:14.100 --> 48:17.166
Melancholy sometimes,
as it is with Durer,

48:17.166 --> 48:19.066
represented by a woman.

48:19.066 --> 48:21.299
But in the emblems
it's represented

48:21.300 --> 48:24.400
by a melancholy man.

48:24.400 --> 48:28.066
Sanguinity, the hot,
moist temperament,

48:28.066 --> 48:30.866
is represented by
a man on horseback

48:30.866 --> 48:33.766
and a woman riding behind him.

48:33.766 --> 48:35.832
I would say, personally
in that instance--

48:35.833 --> 48:38.833
and I invite you all to take
a look at the exhibition--

48:38.833 --> 48:40.966
that he's the
sanguine temperament.

48:40.966 --> 48:42.766
I mean, he's the
doing the riding,

48:42.766 --> 48:45.299
she's really just kind
of along for the ride.

48:45.300 --> 48:51.033
And in general, I
think that the typology

48:51.033 --> 48:57.133
tends to signify a much fuller
spectrum of temperaments

48:57.133 --> 48:58.433
for men than for women.

48:58.433 --> 49:03.099
Because women really
are confined generally

49:03.100 --> 49:04.900
to the phlegmatic.

49:04.900 --> 49:07.600
[...]

49:07.600 --> 49:12.333
So you get this typology which
has a visual tradition of four

49:12.333 --> 49:13.599
temperaments.

49:13.600 --> 49:19.266
But when you turn to the
literature of the temperaments,

49:19.266 --> 49:23.399
of course, it's
hard to find much

49:23.400 --> 49:25.600
going on with the
phlegmatic temperament.

49:25.600 --> 49:29.800
Because it is, by nature,
not so interesting.

49:29.800 --> 49:32.666
I mean, lack of activity, right?

49:32.666 --> 49:37.232
Not warm enough to really
do much in the world.

49:37.233 --> 49:41.433
Blood being the master
humor, again, it's

49:41.433 --> 49:45.366
richly represented in
discourse but not so

49:45.366 --> 49:47.499
interesting in the
visual tradition.

49:47.500 --> 49:50.166
And so that led
us really to focus

49:50.166 --> 49:52.766
on melancholy and
choler, which really

49:52.766 --> 49:53.932
are the dramatic emotions.

49:53.933 --> 49:56.233
I mean, if you are a
playwright and you're

49:56.233 --> 50:00.066
writing plays and the thing
that you have to present

50:00.066 --> 50:04.232
is a problem and
then solve it, then

50:04.233 --> 50:06.333
it's quite natural
that there would

50:06.333 --> 50:11.666
be a predominance of what we
still call the darker emotions.

50:11.666 --> 50:13.266
And so that's why--

50:13.266 --> 50:19.566
and Shylock is tough because
there is no way for us in 2011,

50:19.566 --> 50:24.432
2012 to look at
Shylock and see simply

50:24.433 --> 50:29.366
a choleric, melancholic
temperament at work.

50:29.366 --> 50:33.199
Because Shylock is so--

50:33.200 --> 50:44.100
comes to us with all the baggage
of the historical weight.

50:44.100 --> 50:49.333
But in fact what Shakespeare
gives us in the play

50:49.333 --> 50:51.999
is a variety of
reasons why Shylock

50:52.000 --> 50:56.033
behaves as Shylock does.

50:56.033 --> 51:00.833
He has had this terrible
history of being

51:00.833 --> 51:02.499
so discriminated against.

51:02.500 --> 51:04.400
I mean, it's not as if
Shakespeare presents us

51:04.400 --> 51:06.766
with a monster who's
simply monstrous.

51:06.766 --> 51:09.466
He's a monster
who's monstrousness

51:09.466 --> 51:12.999
is the product of
the environment

51:13.000 --> 51:14.600
that he's been living in.

51:14.600 --> 51:17.400
And if you've got
a humors at all,

51:17.400 --> 51:18.766
of course what
you're going to do

51:18.766 --> 51:24.332
is build up your capacity
for self defense and attack.

51:24.333 --> 51:29.499
But the point there is--

51:29.500 --> 51:32.933
and the point I was certainly
trying to make with Ophelia--

51:32.933 --> 51:41.233
is that the power
of Galenism and why

51:41.233 --> 51:44.233
the humors last
as long as they do

51:44.233 --> 51:48.399
is because they're
so multifactorial.

51:48.400 --> 51:51.466
It's a complete
reduction of the humors

51:51.466 --> 51:53.166
to say, oh, you've
just got these four

51:53.166 --> 51:56.632
typologies of temperaments
that are basically

51:56.633 --> 52:00.699
a function of the
contents of the body.

52:00.700 --> 52:01.733
No, no, no.

52:01.733 --> 52:07.266
I mean, the interest and
power of Galenic humoralism

52:07.266 --> 52:10.999
is that it says you've got this
element in the environment,

52:11.000 --> 52:15.900
and you've got this element
that comes to you at birth,

52:15.900 --> 52:17.600
and then you've got
the seasons, and then

52:17.600 --> 52:21.666
you've got the course of
age, of youth and maturity,

52:21.666 --> 52:23.366
and then you've got gender.

52:23.366 --> 52:26.299
And-- and I didn't
mention this in my talk--

52:26.300 --> 52:29.800
but yet another factor
is where you're born.

52:29.800 --> 52:35.933
If you're a Spaniard and
you're from that blessed middle

52:35.933 --> 52:40.766
of the Earth, which is what
humoralism says, better

52:40.766 --> 52:43.899
to be a Spaniard or
an Italian than to be

52:43.900 --> 52:46.200
a Dane or an Englishman.

52:46.200 --> 52:47.533
Why?

52:47.533 --> 52:51.099
Because heat produces wit.

52:51.100 --> 52:55.766
Heat produces sagacity.

52:55.766 --> 53:01.532
It also leads you a little bit
of jealousy and hot temper,

53:01.533 --> 53:02.066
OK.

53:02.066 --> 53:07.566
But on the whole, the middle,
or we would say southern Europe,

53:07.566 --> 53:09.399
but they would say sort
of there's the North

53:09.400 --> 53:11.266
and there's the South
and there's the middle.

53:11.266 --> 53:16.232
And the middle is really sort of
the latitudes of Spain, Italy,

53:16.233 --> 53:17.533
those latitudes.

53:17.533 --> 53:19.666
That was where you
wanted to be born.

53:19.666 --> 53:21.632
Because those that
was the climate

53:21.633 --> 53:27.599
that was most beneficial
for being smart and having

53:27.600 --> 53:28.700
a good temperament.

53:28.700 --> 53:32.166
Well, this is of course
terribly bothered the English.

53:32.166 --> 53:35.632
Because there they
were up in the North,

53:35.633 --> 53:42.766
and it made them courageous
but also dull witted.

53:42.766 --> 53:47.366
So they kept saying, well,
we're not really that north.

53:47.366 --> 53:51.132
You know, we're not like the
Scandinavians or the Irish.

53:51.133 --> 53:52.499
They're North.

53:52.500 --> 53:55.400
We're kind of more south.

53:55.400 --> 53:57.933
So there was geo-humoralism too.

53:57.933 --> 54:03.366
And so you can argue almost
anything in humoralism.

54:03.366 --> 54:07.532
Because all you have to
do is pick your factors

54:07.533 --> 54:09.533
and then you've
got an explanation.

54:09.533 --> 54:17.966
And in a world, in a cosmology,
where everything is determined

54:17.966 --> 54:24.699
through analogy, you can use--

54:24.700 --> 54:26.333
I mean, it's not
a anti-empirical.

54:26.333 --> 54:27.966
It's not empirical
in any sense that we

54:27.966 --> 54:29.532
would recognize as empirical.

54:29.533 --> 54:32.099
But it wasn't as
if they were simply

54:32.100 --> 54:34.966
blind to or uninterested
in evidence.

54:34.966 --> 54:36.699
They were very
interested in evidence.

54:36.700 --> 54:39.866
They were very interested
in was your skin pink,

54:39.866 --> 54:43.832
was your skin white,
was your skin brown?

54:43.833 --> 54:48.433
If you were the
family of a newborn

54:48.433 --> 54:51.266
and you wanted to find
a nurse for that baby,

54:51.266 --> 54:54.199
don't go for a redhead.

54:54.200 --> 54:56.200
Too hot.

54:56.200 --> 54:56.866
How do you know?

54:56.866 --> 54:59.699
Well, look at her hair.

54:59.700 --> 55:02.900
She's obviously hot, because
if the hair was an excrement--

55:02.900 --> 55:04.700
hair was thought to
be an excrement--

55:04.700 --> 55:06.633
and so therefore
red-head has got

55:06.633 --> 55:09.333
to be produced by a hot body.

55:09.333 --> 55:10.533
Stands to reason.

55:10.533 --> 55:12.199
Unless of course you
had a baby that you

55:12.200 --> 55:14.600
were worried was sort of
cold of nature, well then

55:14.600 --> 55:17.033
you'd find the redheaded nurse.

55:17.033 --> 55:20.966
You know, I mean you would
always be looking for balance.

55:20.966 --> 55:23.999
To balance out the humors.

55:24.000 --> 55:27.100
And so if you thought
your baby was cold,

55:27.100 --> 55:28.866
then you'd look for
a hot blooded nurse.

55:28.866 --> 55:30.732
But if you thought your
baby wasn't, then you

55:30.733 --> 55:34.966
would look for a moderate nurse.

55:34.966 --> 55:37.799
Who had moderate color hair and
a moderate colored complexion

55:37.800 --> 55:38.866
and so forth.

55:38.866 --> 55:44.566
So you looked around you and
you saw color everywhere.

55:44.566 --> 55:49.666
And color was never unimportant.

55:49.666 --> 55:53.799
It was always important.

55:53.800 --> 55:57.166
And then, of course, you
could regulate your diet

55:57.166 --> 56:00.566
through use of the humors.

56:00.566 --> 56:02.699
Because obviously some--

56:02.700 --> 56:04.900
I mean, you could
find in the books.

56:04.900 --> 56:07.033
You would look in an herbal--

56:07.033 --> 56:09.699
as we have in the exhibition,
we have an herbal--

56:09.700 --> 56:14.366
that says to you what degree
of hot or moist or cold or dry

56:14.366 --> 56:15.899
a plant was.

56:15.900 --> 56:17.700
So you would then
go to the herbals

56:17.700 --> 56:22.866
and look for the humoral
quality of a plant

56:22.866 --> 56:25.399
that you would then
take into your body

56:25.400 --> 56:32.566
to counteract what you thought
was the matter with you.

56:32.566 --> 56:38.432
So, I mean, it's an endlessly
fascinating explanatory system.

56:38.433 --> 56:42.666
And it leads to a great
deal of visual and--

56:42.666 --> 56:46.999
there was much
too much material.

56:47.000 --> 56:48.966
But not all of it
is particularly

56:48.966 --> 56:50.599
suited for an exhibition.

56:50.600 --> 56:53.600
And there was very little
way to render the four

56:53.600 --> 56:55.566
temperaments equal in interest.

56:55.566 --> 56:58.699
Because they're not equal
in interest and they're

56:58.700 --> 57:02.500
not equally problematic in
terms of social management.

57:02.500 --> 57:05.133
I mean, one of the things
you would do, for example,

57:05.133 --> 57:09.266
is that if you had somebody
who was really choleric

57:09.266 --> 57:11.466
and you were trying
to figure out who

57:11.466 --> 57:14.199
to send out into battle first.

57:14.200 --> 57:17.100
They're on the front line, you
put those guys out in front.

57:17.100 --> 57:20.066
Because they're just berserk.

57:20.066 --> 57:24.632
And they'll just keep going
and going and going and going.

57:24.633 --> 57:31.666
The humors who have been seen
as very reductive and very

57:31.666 --> 57:32.966
typological.

57:32.966 --> 57:34.732
But the truth is
that they're not.

57:34.733 --> 57:37.766
They're multifactorial
and the tradition

57:37.766 --> 57:39.532
is a rich and
wonderful tradition.

57:39.533 --> 57:45.599
And so this exhibition had to
really focus fairly narrowly

57:45.600 --> 57:51.933
on choler and melancholy because
they were most interesting.

57:51.933 --> 57:53.133
But anyway it was great fun.

57:53.133 --> 57:54.099
Thank you for asking.

57:54.100 --> 57:54.600
Yes.

57:54.600 --> 57:55.166
Yes.

57:55.166 --> 57:57.899
Sir.

57:57.900 --> 58:00.433
First the gentleman
to my right and then

58:00.433 --> 58:01.599
the gentleman to my left.

58:01.600 --> 58:03.600
[Donald Lindberg:] Well, thank you
so much for that lovely lecture,

58:03.600 --> 58:04.833
it was really terrific.

58:04.833 --> 58:07.666
I'd like to ask
you one question.

58:07.666 --> 58:10.632
Shakespeare could have known
a good bit about the Danes--

58:10.633 --> 58:13.433
[?] and so forth--

58:13.433 --> 58:14.099
historically.

58:14.100 --> 58:19.666
But is there a Kate the shrew
ghosting around history somewhere?

58:19.666 --> 58:21.232
[Gail Kern Paster:] Is there a real life model?

58:21.233 --> 58:21.766
[Donald Lindberg:] Yeah.

58:21.766 --> 58:23.999
Is there a story of her
that could have inspired him

58:24.000 --> 58:25.166
to the play.

58:25.166 --> 58:28.699
[Gail Kern Paster:] Well, there is
source material for the play.

58:28.700 --> 58:35.733
There's a particularly nasty
little pamphlet, sort of out

58:35.733 --> 58:37.766
of the jest book
tradition about a guy

58:37.766 --> 58:39.299
who punishes his
wife-- it's really

58:39.300 --> 58:42.066
quite horrible-- about
a guy who punishes

58:42.066 --> 58:46.399
his shrewish wife by beating
her and wrapping her up

58:46.400 --> 58:49.933
in a salted hide.

58:49.933 --> 58:53.499
So there's a whole literature
of-- there's a whole shrew

58:53.500 --> 58:54.800
taming literature.

58:54.800 --> 58:59.400
And so any of this
Shakespeare uses

58:59.400 --> 59:03.100
for The Taming of the Shrew.

59:03.100 --> 59:07.000
But, you know, he really
wouldn't have to look very far.

59:07.000 --> 59:11.533
I mean, she is a
proverbial character

59:11.533 --> 59:17.433
he just is giving
dramatic particularity to.

59:17.433 --> 59:19.399
Rosalind in As You
Like It, Rosalind

59:19.400 --> 59:23.700
has this wonderful line
when she says to Orlando,

59:23.700 --> 59:26.233
maids are maids when
they marry, but when

59:26.233 --> 59:28.933
I'm a wife I'll talk
you out of the house.

59:28.933 --> 59:30.099
I'll be a shrew.

59:30.100 --> 59:33.366
[...]

59:33.366 --> 59:37.499
Once again, I mean just as
there were social norms that

59:37.500 --> 59:41.100
prevented a husband from
beating his wife too badly,

59:41.100 --> 59:46.400
there were absolutely
social norms for the shrew.

59:46.400 --> 59:53.133
And in town and village
life in Shakespeare's time,

59:53.133 --> 59:56.033
she was called a shrew,
she was called a scold.

59:56.033 --> 59:58.266
Sometimes a railer.

59:58.266 --> 01:00:04.699
And certainly there's lots and
lots and lots of court material

01:00:04.700 --> 01:00:06.833
for disorderly women.

01:00:06.833 --> 01:00:10.099
And they're usually humiliated.

01:00:10.100 --> 01:00:14.966
Sometimes we have actual
bridles, this metal

01:00:14.966 --> 01:00:18.399
contraption, that presses down
on the tongue like a horse's

01:00:18.400 --> 01:00:19.233
bridle.

01:00:19.233 --> 01:00:21.299
Which might have been
used in extreme cases

01:00:21.300 --> 01:00:26.866
or might have just been hung up,
like you know we can do this.

01:00:26.866 --> 01:00:29.732
Or they would be duct, you
know, the cucking stools,

01:00:29.733 --> 01:00:30.999
the dunking stools.

01:00:31.000 --> 01:00:33.633
That was the typical punishment.

01:00:33.633 --> 01:00:36.799
Dunk her the horse
pond, that'll teach her.

01:00:36.800 --> 01:00:38.166
Shut up.

01:00:38.166 --> 01:00:39.732
You know.

01:00:39.733 --> 01:00:41.533
So that's the answer.

01:00:41.533 --> 01:00:43.566
Yeah.

01:00:43.566 --> 01:00:45.499
[Audience:] I enjoyed your lecture
very much as well.

01:00:45.500 --> 01:00:49.133
And you emphasized
that Kate is a type

01:00:49.133 --> 01:00:53.599
and she represents a social
outlier to the extreme.

01:00:53.600 --> 01:00:56.100
And I'm wondering
about your typology

01:00:56.100 --> 01:00:58.466
of the humoral characters.

01:00:58.466 --> 01:01:01.032
And I'm racking
my brain to think

01:01:01.033 --> 01:01:04.699
that perhaps the
humors were mixed

01:01:04.700 --> 01:01:06.833
and you don't have
all the outliers.

01:01:06.833 --> 01:01:09.799
And I'm trying to think of a
Shakespearean character that

01:01:09.800 --> 01:01:13.700
was a combination of, say,
phlegmatic and choleric.

01:01:13.700 --> 01:01:17.700
Is that a concept that's
used for perhaps a better

01:01:17.700 --> 01:01:20.500
character than an
outlying character who's

01:01:20.500 --> 01:01:23.800
extremely choleric, extremely
phlegmatic, extremely

01:01:23.800 --> 01:01:26.933
melancholic, where we say
that this is a person who's

01:01:26.933 --> 01:01:28.366
a social paradigm.

01:01:28.366 --> 01:01:30.499
I mean, I'm having trouble
thinking of an example,

01:01:30.500 --> 01:01:34.466
but I'm wondering if that
kind of mixed typology

01:01:34.466 --> 01:01:36.099
occurs in the plays.

01:01:36.100 --> 01:01:36.900
Yes, I mean--

01:01:36.900 --> 01:01:39.600
Shakespeare is such
a great characterizer

01:01:39.600 --> 01:01:43.666
it would be striking if he
only used extreme types.

01:01:43.666 --> 01:01:45.499
But of course he does not.

01:01:45.500 --> 01:01:47.233
I mean, she is--

01:01:47.233 --> 01:01:54.099
I mean he announces that he's
going to deal with the type

01:01:54.100 --> 01:01:58.500
by calling the play The
Taming of a Shrew.

01:01:58.500 --> 01:02:02.433
So she's already typed her at
the moment that he does that.

01:02:02.433 --> 01:02:08.133
[...]

01:02:08.133 --> 01:02:10.733
OK, so for example,
another outlier--

01:02:10.733 --> 01:02:14.266
I mean this answers your
question perhaps indirectly--

01:02:14.266 --> 01:02:16.899
but think of Hotspur.

01:02:16.900 --> 01:02:20.266
I mean, Hotspur's
a character whose

01:02:20.266 --> 01:02:22.699
combativeness, whose
belligerence, whose love for

01:02:22.700 --> 01:02:26.300
battle is in his name.

01:02:26.300 --> 01:02:36.300
And he acts out all the
characteristics of--

01:02:36.300 --> 01:02:40.100
I mean, is he is he choleric
in a topological way?

01:02:40.100 --> 01:02:45.866
No, I mean, because I would say
that he talks, he just talks

01:02:45.866 --> 01:02:48.566
and talks and talks and talks.

01:02:48.566 --> 01:02:51.566
His language is out of
control, his emotions

01:02:51.566 --> 01:02:54.132
are out of control.

01:02:54.133 --> 01:02:56.566
He leads-- at the very
end of the play betrayed

01:02:56.566 --> 01:03:00.832
by everybody-- he leads
everyone into battle.

01:03:00.833 --> 01:03:04.266
Who is his major
contrast in the play?

01:03:04.266 --> 01:03:06.866
In terms of
temperament, it's Hal.

01:03:06.866 --> 01:03:12.799
Hal at is the very
beginning of the play--

01:03:12.800 --> 01:03:15.700
in the second scene of the
first part of Henry IV, that's

01:03:15.700 --> 01:03:19.066
a great scene with Falstaff, you
know, tell me what time of day

01:03:19.066 --> 01:03:19.566
is it--

01:03:19.566 --> 01:03:21.199
Oh no, that's what
Falstaff said.

01:03:21.200 --> 01:03:26.500
And at the very end of that
scene, Hal says I know you all.

01:03:26.500 --> 01:03:30.666
I know you all and
will a while uphold--

01:03:30.666 --> 01:03:32.532
I can't remember the
rest of that line.

01:03:32.533 --> 01:03:35.733
And will a while the
humor of the idleness--

01:03:35.733 --> 01:03:39.099
or will uphold this idleness.

01:03:39.100 --> 01:03:43.400
He's cool, he's strategic.

01:03:43.400 --> 01:03:46.066
This bad behavior of his--

01:03:46.066 --> 01:03:50.299
which he's rousting about with
these guys in the tavern--

01:03:50.300 --> 01:03:52.933
he says, I'll do
this for a while.

01:03:52.933 --> 01:03:55.666
Because when I stop doing
it, everybody will think

01:03:55.666 --> 01:03:56.899
I'm so great.

01:03:56.900 --> 01:04:00.800
I mean, he is Mr. PR.

01:04:00.800 --> 01:04:01.366
You know?

01:04:01.366 --> 01:04:04.666
And how you feel
about him very much

01:04:04.666 --> 01:04:08.899
depends upon how you feel about
somebody who so calculating

01:04:08.900 --> 01:04:10.933
and who preplans.

01:04:10.933 --> 01:04:13.499
His problem, I would
say, in contrast,

01:04:13.500 --> 01:04:16.200
Hotspur can't keep
himself from a quarrel.

01:04:16.200 --> 01:04:18.400
He can't keep himself
out of a quarrel.

01:04:18.400 --> 01:04:21.400
And his name tells us that.

01:04:21.400 --> 01:04:25.300
Hal has problems committing
himself to a quarrel.

01:04:25.300 --> 01:04:30.766
And you can watch, if
you read that play,

01:04:30.766 --> 01:04:33.532
you can watch
Shakespeare move him

01:04:33.533 --> 01:04:39.099
from this cold, detached
inactivity to being

01:04:39.100 --> 01:04:41.633
the guy who kills Hotspur.

01:04:41.633 --> 01:04:45.733
So that is a real trajectory.

01:04:45.733 --> 01:04:48.099
And it's a trajectory
that you can

01:04:48.100 --> 01:04:52.300
track through the
language of heat and cold.

01:04:52.300 --> 01:04:53.666
Of hot and cold.

01:04:53.666 --> 01:04:55.266
That is the language
that you're going

01:04:55.266 --> 01:04:57.399
to look for if you want
to read the humors.

01:04:57.400 --> 01:05:00.133
Because it's very
rare that you're

01:05:00.133 --> 01:05:04.166
going to hear the words
choler, phlegm, melancholy.

01:05:04.166 --> 01:05:05.866
You're not going to hear those.

01:05:05.866 --> 01:05:11.599
You're going to hear coldness,
or hotness, or dryness.

01:05:11.600 --> 01:05:13.900
Hardness, in the case of hearts.

01:05:13.900 --> 01:05:16.100
That's the language
you're going to hear.

01:05:16.100 --> 01:05:19.000
And it's not going
to be the typology

01:05:19.000 --> 01:05:21.333
except in the outlier
cases, as you said.

01:05:21.333 --> 01:05:24.999
What it is going
to be is a process

01:05:25.000 --> 01:05:31.700
of people becoming more
active, less active.

01:05:31.700 --> 01:05:35.533
More combative, more
cruel, more depressed.

01:05:35.533 --> 01:05:40.999
And the language of the
plays will cue that for us.

01:05:41.000 --> 01:05:43.100
You don't have to read--

01:05:43.100 --> 01:05:45.366
you can read it
metaphorically because that's

01:05:45.366 --> 01:05:47.632
what's happened with the
language of the humors.

01:05:47.633 --> 01:05:49.933
Is that it is gone from
being literal descriptions

01:05:49.933 --> 01:05:53.766
of the body to metaphorical
descriptions of the body

01:05:53.766 --> 01:05:55.099
that we use all the time.

01:05:55.100 --> 01:05:56.666
Catch a cold.

01:05:56.666 --> 01:05:58.599
Why do we say we're
catching a cold?

01:05:58.600 --> 01:06:01.600
It's because of all this
gunk coming out of our--

01:06:01.600 --> 01:06:03.933
all this cold, moist stuff.

01:06:03.933 --> 01:06:06.233
So, you know, we live the
language of the humors.

01:06:06.233 --> 01:06:09.466
We just don't attach
it to bodily events.

01:06:09.466 --> 01:06:11.966
[...]

01:06:11.966 --> 01:06:12.466
Yeah.

01:06:12.466 --> 01:06:55.799
[Inaudible]

01:06:55.800 --> 01:06:57.900
Well, exactly.

01:06:57.900 --> 01:07:02.700
And Katie Park talks
about the model.

01:07:02.700 --> 01:07:06.633
And the model is that
certain bodily organs

01:07:06.633 --> 01:07:08.733
produce the humor.

01:07:08.733 --> 01:07:11.299
So they were wrong about
this, as it turns out,

01:07:11.300 --> 01:07:12.400
that the liver--

01:07:12.400 --> 01:07:14.566
the thought was that the
liver produces the blood.

01:07:14.566 --> 01:07:16.266
We know that that's,
of course, not true.

01:07:16.266 --> 01:07:20.499
But if you look at a liver it's
certainly a very bloody organ.

01:07:20.500 --> 01:07:23.800
The gallbladder producing
choler, the spleen

01:07:23.800 --> 01:07:24.733
producing melancholy.

01:07:24.733 --> 01:07:26.233
Melancholy was a
problem, of course,

01:07:26.233 --> 01:07:29.433
because they could
never really find it.

01:07:29.433 --> 01:07:31.333
Because it doesn't really exist.

01:07:31.333 --> 01:07:34.099
[...]

01:07:34.100 --> 01:07:37.533
So the spleen is the
source of melancholy.

01:07:37.533 --> 01:07:40.999
The phlegm, I guess--

01:07:41.000 --> 01:07:43.733
I'm trying to remember
where phlegm comes from but,

01:07:43.733 --> 01:07:45.633
I guess it's the lungs actually.

01:07:45.633 --> 01:07:48.833
[...]

01:07:48.833 --> 01:07:53.733
Anyway, you've got this system
of organs producing this.

01:07:53.733 --> 01:07:59.166
The tradition is extremely,
extremely ancient.

01:07:59.166 --> 01:08:01.966
And there's an amazing book--

01:08:01.966 --> 01:08:03.632
I don't know whether
it's in the library

01:08:03.633 --> 01:08:07.133
or not-- by a man named
Richard Braxton Onians

01:08:07.133 --> 01:08:15.299
and it's Pre-European ideas
of mind, body, fate, soul.

01:08:15.300 --> 01:08:21.133
And he talks about the
language of the Homeric corpus,

01:08:21.133 --> 01:08:26.433
and how Achilles
will say my thymus

01:08:26.433 --> 01:08:31.266
tells me that I
need to kill him.

01:08:31.266 --> 01:08:37.099
Or my thymus is angry at
Agamemnon or something.

01:08:37.100 --> 01:08:38.766
I mean, you know,
it's very localized.

01:08:38.766 --> 01:08:43.899
It's very localized, where the
source of different emotions

01:08:43.900 --> 01:08:45.000
is thought to come from.

01:08:45.000 --> 01:08:47.200
And it really starts with
Homer and then, of course,

01:08:47.200 --> 01:08:54.300
gets if you will medicalized
by Aristotle, Hippocrates

01:08:54.300 --> 01:08:56.433
and Galen and then it
just powers its way

01:08:56.433 --> 01:09:00.266
through to the end
of the 18th century.

01:09:00.266 --> 01:09:02.032
I mean, it's amazing
how long it lasts.

01:09:02.033 --> 01:09:06.299
[...]

01:09:06.300 --> 01:09:08.833
And one of the reasons
that that's the case

01:09:08.833 --> 01:09:12.266
is that even though
anatomy is really--

01:09:12.266 --> 01:09:15.566
I mean, anatomy is
the great achievement

01:09:15.566 --> 01:09:16.799
of Renaissance medicine.

01:09:16.800 --> 01:09:19.566
But physiology, of course,
lags way, way behind.

01:09:19.566 --> 01:09:28.699
So it takes a long time
for anatomy to not continue

01:09:28.700 --> 01:09:32.033
to validate the humours.

01:09:32.033 --> 01:09:35.699
Which, of course,
it could hardly do.

01:09:35.700 --> 01:09:37.200
What is Vesalius
is motivated by?

01:09:37.200 --> 01:09:40.000
The desire to
authenticate Galen.

01:09:40.000 --> 01:09:45.100
[...]

01:09:45.100 --> 01:09:46.766
Yeah.

01:09:46.766 --> 01:09:49.399
[Audience:] To what extent would the
humors be understood by everyone

01:09:49.400 --> 01:09:50.366
in Shakespeare's time?

01:09:50.366 --> 01:09:53.599
Was that more an educated
person's understanding

01:09:53.600 --> 01:09:56.500
or would all of his
audience have understood?

01:09:56.500 --> 01:09:58.100
[Gail Kern Paster:] The answer is
pretty much everybody.

01:09:58.100 --> 01:10:03.566
Because healing was really up
and down the social ladder.

01:10:03.566 --> 01:10:07.599
I mean, in other words,
in order to heal--

01:10:07.600 --> 01:10:09.633
in order to be a healer
at all, whether you

01:10:09.633 --> 01:10:15.333
were a village
healer or a midwife

01:10:15.333 --> 01:10:19.533
or a lady in one of the great
houses who was dispensing--

01:10:19.533 --> 01:10:23.099
I mean many of the
aristocratic ladies

01:10:23.100 --> 01:10:26.466
were dispensing medicines
from their gardens

01:10:26.466 --> 01:10:29.532
and from their
distilleries and so forth.

01:10:29.533 --> 01:10:31.466
And then, of course,
you've got the grocers

01:10:31.466 --> 01:10:34.999
in the apothecaries
and so forth that--

01:10:35.000 --> 01:10:37.733
I mean, pretty much everybody
subscribed to the humors.

01:10:37.733 --> 01:10:44.099
And even when you get to the
theories that succeed like

01:10:44.100 --> 01:10:49.000
Paracelsus--you know,
Paracelsus in my opinion,

01:10:49.000 --> 01:10:51.433
tweaks the humors,
but he doesn't--

01:10:51.433 --> 01:10:53.566
I mean, he says,
well no, they're

01:10:53.566 --> 01:10:56.932
really only three elements.

01:10:56.933 --> 01:11:00.999
He's still operating in
this overall paradigm.

01:11:01.000 --> 01:11:06.633
And everybody would
have known it.

01:11:06.633 --> 01:11:08.599
It was just that some
people would have claimed

01:11:08.600 --> 01:11:10.233
more authority than others.

01:11:10.233 --> 01:11:12.699
And some people would
have read the handbooks.

01:11:12.700 --> 01:11:16.066
And so you get a
handbook like Lemnius' A

01:11:16.066 --> 01:11:18.499
Touchstone of Complexions
in the 16th century

01:11:18.500 --> 01:11:19.900
And you get it in
Latin, and then

01:11:19.900 --> 01:11:22.000
it gets translated
into the vernacular.

01:11:22.000 --> 01:11:25.133
And then you get in the 17th
century more vernaculars.

01:11:25.133 --> 01:11:28.133
So if you can read
Latin, you know, you've

01:11:28.133 --> 01:11:30.266
got the humors in the books.

01:11:30.266 --> 01:11:33.199
If you can only read
the vernacular then

01:11:33.200 --> 01:11:34.900
you have to wait a
little bit longer.

01:11:34.900 --> 01:11:37.533
But there was a general--

01:11:37.533 --> 01:11:41.566
my sense of it is that there's
a very general and widespread

01:11:41.566 --> 01:11:46.399
understanding of what they are
and what you're supposed to do.

01:11:46.400 --> 01:11:48.166
Which is find the balance.

01:11:48.166 --> 01:11:52.099
Counteract whatever
the problem was.

01:11:52.100 --> 01:11:54.566
If you're dry, you
apply moistening.

01:11:54.566 --> 01:11:56.566
If you're hot, you apply
cooling, and so forth.

01:11:56.566 --> 01:11:59.199
And so what you're
aiming for is a kind

01:11:59.200 --> 01:12:03.966
of homeostasis, a balance.

01:12:03.966 --> 01:12:09.732
In the spring you
go and you get bled.

01:12:09.733 --> 01:12:10.233
Why?

01:12:10.233 --> 01:12:12.233
Because all this stuff
has been building up

01:12:12.233 --> 01:12:16.433
all winter in your body.

01:12:16.433 --> 01:12:19.199
I think one of the reasons
for the power of the humors

01:12:19.200 --> 01:12:22.800
is the placebo effect.

01:12:22.800 --> 01:12:25.300
It might feel really
good, who knows?

01:12:25.300 --> 01:12:26.900
It might feel really
good every spring

01:12:26.900 --> 01:12:28.400
to go get your vein opened.

01:12:28.400 --> 01:12:30.400
[Audience murmuring]

01:12:30.400 --> 01:12:32.233
[...]

01:12:32.233 --> 01:12:33.433
Try it.

01:12:33.433 --> 01:12:36.866
[Laughter]

01:12:36.866 --> 01:12:43.199
[...]

01:12:43.200 --> 01:12:45.933
Anyway, thank you all very
much, you're a great audience.

01:12:45.933 --> 01:12:52.833
[Applause]

01:12:52.833 --> 01:13:04.933
[Audience chatter]

01:13:04.933 --> 01:13:07.299
[Thank you slide]