Miss Pym and a Friend

Miss Pym and a Friend

Thursday, March 8, 2018

The Four Humors and Sex and the City; some Thoughts

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According to lonerwolf.com, "Specifically, the Four Humors were: black bile, while was associated with the Melancholic person; yellow bile, which was associated with the Choleric person; blood, which was associated with the Sanguine person; and phlegm, which was associated with the phlegmatic person." (2018). 

The idea of the four humors dates to Ancient Greek mediceine and possibly earlier, but really was popular during the Middle Ages and even later during the Renaissance.

I submit that the four heroines of SATC, Samantha, Carrie, Charlotte, and Miranda, each personify one aspect of the four humors, which when balanced and blended correctly in the human body, create one healthy person.

Top L to R, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, Kristen Davis, and Sarah Jessica Parker
Arguably, Miranda the lawyer who thinks everything to death, often to her own detriment, is the Melancholic person.

Charlotte might be more Phlegmatic with her upper class, staid and proper notions; she often has to be jarred into reality.

Samantha of the voracious passions and appetite is more Choleric.

Carrie, the glue holding them all together with her optimism and imagination, is the Sanguine person.

A great book on a related topic is Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, a 17th century text still in print.

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