Playing the Fool: the Pragmatic Status of Shakespeare's Clowns

Abstract

The fool occupies an uneasy place in Shakespear's plays-half way between character and commentator, in part carrying over his real-life role as jester into the ‘court-world’ of the play, but also serving as a metadramatic intermediary between author and audience. And of course, Shakespeare's use of the role in turn modifies our own expectations and understanding of it. Roberta Mullini. of the University of Bologna, here examines the full range of the fools created by Shakespeare, both in terms of their specific dramatic functions, and as holders of the ‘fool's licence’ to disrupt language, action, and the very relationship between seeming and being.