figure
The sanguine student
also: сангвиник
An unnamed "sanguine," pleasure-loving medical student in "A Dreary Story" (Sections 65-87) who has failed the narrator's examination five times and comes to plead for a passing grade; the narrator uses him to illustrate the old humoral-temperament typology ("sanguine" as one of the four classical temperaments) applied to the students he is lenient with versus those he "chases."
Reading notes
- A Dreary Story §65 sanguine
Invokes the ancient/medieval humoral theory of the four temperaments (sanguine, choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic), in which the sanguine type -- linked to an excess of blood -- was held to be cheerful, sociable, and pleasure-loving. The narrator applies the term clinically to characterize the students who "haggle" over failing grades because a delay "spoils the appetite and interferes with regular attendance at the opera," as opposed to the more melancholic, uncomplaining failures; the same student is called "the sanguine fellow" again at Sections 72 and 82.