Essay on William Shakespeares Fools -- Biography Biographies Essays

Shakespeares Fools Shakespeare subroutined foolish characters in his plays to make points that he considers highly important. I had previously supposed that Shakespeare was an entertainer who sprinkled his writing with observations approximately humanity and its place in the world to please critics. However, I discovered that he was a gifted writer who had a penetrating understanding the precondition of humanity in the world and sprinkled his plays with fools and jokes meant for the common man as a way of conceding to his audiences intellectual level. Or, as Walter Kaufmann said in his essay Shakespeare among Socrates and Existentialism, Shakespeare came to terms with the obtuseness of his public he gave his pearls a slight odor of the sty before he cast them. Kaufmann continues his essay by saying that Shakespeare, foreign many modern artists, turned the challenge of a boorish, lecherous, and vulgar audience to advantage and increased the richness and the subtlety of drama. (Kaufmann 3) Perhaps the best example of Shakespeares use of the fool (and certainly the best in any Shakespearean play that I have read) is Falstaff in I Henry IV. In The Fortunes of Falstaff, Wilson claims that Falstaff is the embodiment of the ungodliness of Vanity he is cowardly in battle, proud and pretentious, dishonest, conniving, lacks respect for the property of others, and is concerned only with wine, tavern wenches, and comfort. It would be easy for a reader (or play-watcher) unfamiliar with Shakespeare to conclude, in our own time, that Falstaff has been included in the drama solely to provide entertainment value. However, Falstaff is also essential to the play in many ways. He is requisite in the development of Prince Hal, ... ...han I first supposed. Rather than being mere device for the entertainment of his audience, Bottom and Falstaff (and many of his other characters) are used, in these cases to origin the other characters of his plays, to make important po ints that Shakespeare wishes his audience to understand. They are integral parts of Shakespeares drama. References Kaufmann, Walter. Shakespeare Between Socrates and Existentialism in From Shakespeare to Existentialism. Princeton Princeton University Press, 1980. Shakespeare, William. The Comedy of Errors. stark naked York Penguin, 1965. Shakespeare, William. Henry IV, Part I. New York Penguin, 1965. Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Nights Dream. New York Penguin, 1965. Wilson, John Dover. From The Fortunes of Falstaff in Shakespeares Henry IV, Part I. Ed. Maynard Mack. New York Penguin, 1965.