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    The Role of The Fool in Shakespeares Plays

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    This document discusses the role of the fool in Shakespeare's plays. Shakespearean fools were clever peasants who used their wits to outsmart those of higher social standing, entertaining audiences. Fools have a long tradition dating back to Roman times as jesters who entertained aristocratic courts through songs, stories, and comedy. In Shakespeare's plays, fools took on a more complex role, addressing important themes beyond just providing comic relief. They helped audiences understand the serious themes of the plays by shifting focus to realities outside the fictional world. Fools wore distinctive costumes at the Globe Theatre, including a patchwork coat with bells, tights in different colors, and an animal-themed hood and props.

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    The Role of The Fool in Shakespeares Plays

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    This document discusses the role of the fool in Shakespeare's plays. Shakespearean fools were clever peasants who used their wits to outsmart those of higher social standing, entertaining audiences. Fools have a long tradition dating back to Roman times as jesters who entertained aristocratic courts through songs, stories, and comedy. In Shakespeare's plays, fools took on a more complex role, addressing important themes beyond just providing comic relief. They helped audiences understand the serious themes of the plays by shifting focus to realities outside the fictional world. Fools wore distinctive costumes at the Globe Theatre, including a patchwork coat with bells, tights in different colors, and an animal-themed hood and props.

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    This document discusses the role of the fool in Shakespeare's plays. Shakespearean fools were clever peasants who used their wits to outsmart those of higher social standing, entertaining audiences. Fools have a long tradition dating back to Roman times as jesters who entertained aristocratic courts through songs, stories, and comedy. In Shakespeare's plays, fools took on a more complex role, addressing important themes beyond just providing comic relief. They helped audiences understand the serious themes of the plays by shifting focus to realities outside the fictional world. Fools wore distinctive costumes at the Globe Theatre, including a patchwork coat with bells, tights in different colors, and an animal-themed hood and props.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    520 views7 pages

    The Role of The Fool in Shakespeares Plays

    Uploaded by

    api-291592636
    This document discusses the role of the fool in Shakespeare's plays. Shakespearean fools were clever peasants who used their wits to outsmart those of higher social standing, entertaining audiences. Fools have a long tradition dating back to Roman times as jesters who entertained aristocratic courts through songs, stories, and comedy. In Shakespeare's plays, fools took on a more complex role, addressing important themes beyond just providing comic relief. They helped audiences understand the serious themes of the plays by shifting focus to realities outside the fictional world. Fools wore distinctive costumes at the Globe Theatre, including a patchwork coat with bells, tights in different colors, and an animal-themed hood and props.

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    The role of The Fool in Shakespeares plays

    BY NIKOLA VRAPEVI

    King Lear and The Fool in the Storm


    William Dyce

    The Shakespearean fool is a recurring character type in the works of William


    Shakespeare.
    Shakespearean fools are usually clever peasants or commoners that use their wits
    to outdo people of higher social standing. In this sense, they are very similar to
    the real fools, and jesters of the time, but their characteristics are greatly
    heightened for theatrical effect. The "groundlings" (theatre-goers who were too
    poor to pay for seats and thus stood on the 'ground' in the front by the stage) that
    frequented the Globe Theatre were more likely to be drawn to these
    Shakespearean fools.

    Origin of The Fool


    Fools have entertained a varied public from Roman through Medieval times. The
    fool perhaps reached its pre-Shakespearean heights as the jester in aristocratic
    courts across Europe. The jester played a dynamic and changing role in
    entertaining aristocratic households in a wide variety of ways: songs, music,
    storytelling, medieval satire, physical comedy and, to a lesser extent, juggling
    and acrobatics. Shakespeare not only borrowed from this multi-talented jester
    tradition, but contributed significantly to its rethinking. Whereas the court jester
    often regaled his audience with various skills aimed to amuse, Shakespeare's fool
    became a complex character who could highlight more important issues. Like
    Shakespeare's other characters, the fool began to speak outside of the narrow
    confines of exemplary morality. Shakespeare's fools address themes of love,
    psychic turmoil, personal identity, and many other innumerable themes that arise
    in Shakespeare, and in modern theatre.

    Dramatic function of The Fool


    'That, of course, is the great secret of the successful fool that he is no fool at all.'
    Isaac Asimov, Guide to Shakespeare

    Some have argued that the clowning in Shakespeare's plays may have been
    intended as "an emotional vacation from the more serious business of the main
    action", in other words, comic relief. It is argued that Shakespeare's clowning
    goes beyond just comic relief, instead making the horrific or deeply complex
    scenes more understandable and "true to the realities of living, then and now."
    Shifting the focus from the fictional world to the audience's reality helps convey
    "more effectively the theme of the dramas.

    Costumes
    The costumes worn by Shakespearean fools were fairly standardized at
    the Globe Theatre. The actor wore a ragged or patchwork coat. There
    were often bells along the skirt and on the elbows. They wore closed
    breeches with tights, with each leg a different colour. A monk-like hood,
    covering the entire head was positioned as a cape, covering the shoulders
    and part of the chest. This hood was decorated with animal body parts,
    such as donkey's ears or the neck and head of a rooster. The animal theme
    was continued in the crest worn as well.
    The actor had props. Usually he carried a short stick decorated with the
    doll head of a fool or puppet on the end. He wore a long petticoat of
    different colours, made of expensive materials such as velvet trimmed
    with yellow.

    Costumes

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