Hausarbeit:

Lear´s Shadow.

The Omnipresence of Foolishness

and the Thin Line between Foolishness and Kingship

in Shakespeare´s King Lear.

„Ask him his purposes, why he appears upon this call o´th´trumpet.“

Contents

Introduction Page 2

The Fool Outside 3

The Omnipresence of Foolishness 7

1. The Centrality of Marginality 7

2. The Mask of Folly 9

Lear´s Shadow 12

1. Type and Anti-type 12

2. The Loyal Fool 14

3. The Royal Fool 16

The Bitter Fool and the Cassandra Tragedy 18

Bibliography 21

„O that I were a fool! I am ambitious for a motley coat [...] I must have liberty withal, as large a charter as the wind, to blow on who I please, for so fools have“

„[Der Narr] war eine wandelnde Warnung und erinnerte seinen Herrscher daran, wie klein die Spanne zwischen dem mächtigen König und dem verlachten Toren war.“

Introduction

The Fool in William Shakespeare´s King Lear - strange and nameless as a character, without fundamental dramatical indispensability as a figure, and seemingly without any tragical qualities as a jester. And though, with all that he seems to lack if taken by his face value, Lear´s Fool plays a significant part in the tragedy. „Does Shakespeare violate the canon of decorum or seemliness when he introduces the Fool as companion to the King?“ Is a fool in the right place when set into a tragedy, and is Lear´s Fool an adequate „companion“, or is he more than just that? Then what is his relationship to his master like? What is the Fool´s function in the play, be it on the dramatical level or the symbolical?

Within this paper, I will try and find some possible and plausible, though certainly not final answers to the questions above. Therefore, I will firstly explain the Fool´s general task in the play as a figure, then talk about the Fool´s relationship to his surrounding in general and to the King especially. With regard to what may result from these matters and final to my considerations, I will then discuss the Fool himself and his role´s implications and try to draw a conclusion.

„The wiseman´s folly is anatomiz´d / Even by the squand´ring glances of the fool. /

Invest me in my motley; give me leave / To speak my mind, and I will through and through /

Cleanse the body of th´ infected world, / If they will patiently receive my medicine.“

„Nur er konnte [...] den außerhalb der göttlichen Ordnung stehenden und Verwirrung stiftenden Narren überwinden.“

The Fool Outside

All hail Lear, that shalt be fool hereafter! - If the old King had had three witches for company like his colleague Macbeth had, this sentence would be likely to be one of their prophecies; but instead of a couple of demoniacal sisters inciting his vices of greed and hunger for power, Lear has beside him a mere mortal dressed in motley who despite of his benevolence can only witness his master´s constant loss of power. While Macbeth is blinded by predictions that misleadingly give him the pretence of some splendid future, Lear does not pay attention to the warnings of the up-coming mischief, and while the witches cause the misery in which Macbeth is doomed to die, Lear´s Fool tries to avert it. What the two Kings have in common is (of course) their monarchic status, the change in their characters and the condemnation to a tragic death; the three witches and Lear´s Fool share the ability of prophesying and the fact that they both belong to a sphere different from everybody else´s. But what makes the Fool so special that one can speak of a „sphere“ of his own? What distinguishes, what differentiates him from all the other characters in the play? In order to roughly anticipate an answer, we may say: In several respects, for several reasons, the Fool exists on the outside.

Just like the joker in a pack of cards, the Fool is a „wild card“ to his surrounding in the play. His disposition as an outsider can be divided into four different aspects.

• Firstly, the Fool is „conspicuously classless“, i.e. he cannot definitely be put in one particular place in the social hierarchy, nay is incompatible with it.

In spite of his lack of a noble descendance, the Fool dwells among the highborns of the court, and though he has no title, no treasure, neither power nor authority, he associates with Kings and Queens and spends most of his time in their company. The Fool „may haunt the houses, mansions, palaces of the high and mighty“, but „obviously [he is] neither of the upper class nor distinctly of any other“. The Fool certainly belongs to the court, but he has no usual office whatsoever, neither in nobility, nor in politics, nor in military, nor in administration, nor in craftmanship. „Lear´s Fool is classless to a point where even to consider his place in the social hierachy seems ridiculous“ because the Fool negates hierarchical orders. Regardless of his ranklessness, however, Lear seems to consider his Fool as an „employee“ of eminent importance: „Where´s my fool? Ho, I think the world´s asleep“. In fact, the old King is the only one the Fool actually relates to, and this he primarily does simply because Lear is his master. It is the Fool´s profession to be amusing, bewildering and strange, and therefore he must remain a stranger strange to interpersonal relationships (though, as we will see, Lear´s Fool, in his compassionate loyalty to his master, is a character far from a Fool completely indifferent and careless).

• Secondly, and strongly connected with the first point, the Fools is an „outlaw“, so to say, i.e. he evades the patterns of jurisdiction as well as those of social hierarchies and is „a law unto himself“.

Goneril, annoyed by his respectless behaviour, reproachfully addresses Lear´s Fool as „this your all-licensed fool“. Indeed, it is the Fool´s prerogative to „speak what [he] feel[s], not what [he] ought to say“, to freely speak his mind without reservation, and it is granted by right of office. None other could dare gibe at or even mockingly insult the King as the Fool does, e.g. by irreverently addressing Lear as „nuncle“ or even „boy“ or passing overbearing remarks about him and his actions that are far from the adequate etiquette („Now thou art an 0 without a figure. I am better than thou art, now. I am a fool; thou art nothing“ „Yes, indeed, thou wouldst make a good fool“). While others have to face banishment (Cordelia, Kent) or harsh physical punishment (Oswald) for their so-considered acts of disrespect, the Fool gets away with it and does not need to fear such penalties for his „foolish honesty“. Punishment for him can only occur arbitralily when he overtries his master´s patience: „Take heed, sirrah - the whip“. Because of his „Fool´s license“, the Fool stands outside of punishableness and is struck at only randomly. Thus, Lear´s Fool expresses his difference to the rest of the court: „I marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are. They`ll have me whipped for speaking true, thou`lt have me whipped for lying, and sometimes I am whipped for holding my peace“. The Fool has the right to speak his mind by which he can transcend jurisdiction, but then again he can rely on no law whatsoever that would save him from his masters´ sudden fits of rage.

• Thirdly, the Fool shows a „conspicuous withdrawal syndrome“, i.e. that his involvement „in the action, incidents, tensions of the plays is peripheral“.

In comparison to the main characters, the Fool, being a character of minor importance aside the protagonists and antagonists and their affairs - we may avoid to call him a „side-kick“ - is less affected by the play´s action and has less influence on it. There is no absolute neccessity for the Fool´s presence in the play; at least , it can be considered conceivable that, on the whole, the play might work as well without significant changes in the story if the Fool was omitted. Since the Fool is no chief character, he does not need to be constantly present (in King Lear, the Fool does participate in 6 scenes out of 23 only and has his final appearance in the sixth scene of the third of five acts), and his appearances are rather inserted for a special purpose, in order to intentionally create a special effect. The Fool´s disposition as both a social and dramatical outsider makes him (re)movable, and, regarding the whole ensemble of the Shakespearian Fools, „Lear´s Fool is the most removed of all. He darts in and out of the play with his wry comments, his unremarked wisdom and warnings [...] when he is no longer dramatically needed he disappears from the action with utter finality“.

• Fourthly, the Fool distances himself both from the play´s action and his profession as a mere jester by commentatory utterances, often aside or in soliloquies.

„There is little in Lear´s Fool that inclines us from a strong feeling that he is less a comic than a prophetic or even tragic figure“. Indeed, Lear´s Fool is by far no half-witted boisterous clown whose main task it would be to simply crack some uncomplicated jokes; a Fool like that would truly be misplaced in a tragedy. Instead of this, the Fool´s social independence and autonomy, his extraordinary license to inconsiderately speak his mind, his dramatical mobility and the ironic distance in his quips entitle him to be a remarkably acute built-in commentator of the action who can mediate between the play and the audience. Since - „because no true Fool is completely commited to the world within which the actions of the plays are placed“ - the Fool can easily withdraw himself from his involvement in the action and gains an oversight of what happens in the play. Then, in a reflective transcension of the action, he speaks out his view on things („For you know, nuncle, the hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long / that it´s had it head bit off by it young; so out went the candle and we were left darkling“), he can assessingly sum up the previous incidents („When thou clovest thy crown i´th´ middle and gavest away both parts, thou borest thine ass o´er the dirt. Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou gavest thy golden one away“) or comment on general matters („Wise men are grown foppish / and know not how their wits to wear / their manners are so apish“), reprove his master („If thou wert my fool, nuncle, I´d had thee beaten for being old before thy time [...] thou should´st not have been old till thou hadst been wise“) or express his antecipations in predictions („I´ll speak a prophecy ere I go“).

If comedy requires „a certain distance“ on the audience´s side and invokes „less identification [...] than does tragedy“, the Fool as a figure originally comical is the one that - from his distance to the action, from the outside of the action - can make his reflections deputizingly for the spectator and, „in a way, is an ideal „us“; he represents the part of us which does not identify with characters or situations, but is able to see behind illusion“. It is his function both as a character and as a narrative device to provide a critical breakdown of the play´s incidents the audience then has to confront with. And then, after consideration, we will have to agree to Kent´s realization that „this is not altogether fool“, but that it is the Fool who makes it his business „to speak a truth that no-one wishes to hear unless they speak it themselves [...] the Fool´s knowledge is the folly of mankind, the fool´s ability is to exorcize that folly“.

As we have seen, the Fool´s existence is based on living on the outside in numerous respects, both as a character and a figure: in his deviance and irreconcilability with hierarchical systems, his relational seclusion and his unimpeachableness socially and juridically, in the mobility of his presence and the fluctuation of his few appearances dramatically, and eventually narratively in his ability to transcend the action and to comment on it.

„If I had a monopoly out, they would have part on´t [...] they will not let me have the fool to myself.“

The Omnipresence of Foolishness

In the previous section, we have taken a look at some of the Fool´s very own and special features and his multiple characteristics of being an outsider, and we realized his uniqueness among the play´s other characters. But now, oddly enough, it seems as if certain qualities we have established as the Fool´s prerogatives again are not that exclusive to him. In fact, Foolishness - thus we may call the canon of the Fool´s typical characteristics and dispositional peculiarities beyond the implications of mere zany and stupidity - is quite common in King Lear, as it occurs.

1. The Centrality of Marginality

The Fool is an outsider typically and fundamentally, very well; but then, in King Lear, who isn´t? The entire play and its ensemble of characters is „enacted on the margins“, nay exhibits a „centrality of marginality“. Nearly all central characters are outsiders in some respect, and again nearly all of them are somehow thrown into exclusion:

• First and foremost, there is Lear. The play´s chief character can be regarded as a tripple outsider: Firstly, he is - willingly at first, but suffering from the consequences later on -out of his office; secondly, by being dismissed by his daughters, he falls out of social intergration and becomes „the outcast on the heath“; thirdly, he increasingly is out of his mind. In the course of the play, Lear has to undergo a continuous process of the irredeemable loss of his formerly held royal status in the social hierarchy, his properties, his power, his authority, his sanity and thus „is reduced to essential nothingness“. Then, eventually, the last thing he loses is his life.

• Gloucester, being equal to Lear in age as well as in paternity, has to endure a quite similar lot. His faithless bastard son turns against him just as Lear´s daughters do against their father, and by the cabal of the conspiratorial offsprings he is deprived of his title, his home and his eye-sight, „thrust [...] out at gates“, and exiled.

• Cordelia is the first in the whole string of exiles as her banishment is exclaimed in the very first scene of the play already. On the one hand, her (so-considered) failure in the love-test makes her fall out of her father´s favour and causes her expulsion and the withdrawal of her dowry, on the other hand, it sets the course for the action´s further development.

• Edmond thinks up his diabolical designs because he is fed up with being an outsider on account of his illegitimate birth: „Why brand they us with with ‚base`, with ‚baseness, bastardy - base, base` [...] well then, legitimate Edgar, I must have your land“. Obviously, Edmond is ridden by the inferiorty of his birth deviant from an accepted nobleman´s descendance, and driven by hateful envy, he seeks to oust his brother and deceive his father in order to take by force the acceptance, the possessions and the title his illegitimacy denies him.

• Edgar becomes the victim of his evil half brother´s intrigue and is cast out by his deceived father. Since Gloucester has given order to track down and kill his allegedly treacherous son, Edgar is forced to even give up his identity in order to escape his persecutors.

• Kent´s dismissal is directly subsequent to Cordelia´s expulsion as the effect is to the cause. In his outspoken disapproval of the way the King treats his virtuous child and by his persistent opposition, Kent draws Lear´s fury unto himself, falls from his master´s grace and is likewise exiled. The highly loyal and devoted Kent is landed with his expulsion by demanding to „speak what [he] feel[s], not what [he] ought to say“ and criticizing the King´s „hideous rashness“; but then again, this, as we remember, is a prerogative exclusive to the unpunishable Fool. Kent gets his sentence on account of his attempt to do what only the Fool is allowed to, or, to put it another way, because he has been playing the fool without authority.

Is Foolishness collective? In the course of the play, we witness nearly every central character fall out of his place in the social hierarchy, nay the disintegration of the social system itself. As the social and especially the familial order is so heavily disturbed, the affected characters are deprived of their formerly fixed status and approximate to the Fool who always has been standing outside of defintive orders, they become foolish, in our special sense. Yet before further reflections upon these matters, there is another aspect to be considered.

2. The Mask of Folly

Firstly, we may take a look at how the Fool in Shakespearian plays is described by his fellow characters: „This fellow is wise enough to play the fool, and to do that well craves a kind of wit [...] This is a practice as full of labour as the wise men´s art, for folly that he wisely shows is fit“; „He uses his folly like a stalking-horse and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit“. Indeed, „the Fool´s job is to wear the mask of jester or folly [...] yet we know that beneath whatever mask he is wearing something very far from illusion is being communicated to us. [...] Like any true actor, his professional function is not to be himself“. In order to be able to both apply his criticism and occasionally save himself from a penalty, „the Fool habitually hides his meaning in metaphor [...] so well does he disguise his thoughtful comments [...] that he has misled some observers into actually taking him for a fool“ and „used the mask of folly to hide his lonely apprehension of the truth behind illusion“. In his folly the Fool hides the true meaning of his utterances as well as his true self. But again, he is not alone in that, and hardly anyone in King Lear actually is what he seems to be.

• After his dismissal, Kent disguises himself as Caius in order to still be able to stand by his King and to remain at his court. Unjustly declared persona non grata, Kent hopes that, with his identity concealed, his „good intent may carry through itself to that full issue for which [he] razed [his] likeness“, and this intent - in spite of Kent´s expulsion by a mad Lear - is to prevent from his loved master any possible harm, be it caused by his adversaries or brought about by Lear himself. In this noble principle and in the concealment of his real self, Kent resembles the Fool once again.

• Power-hungry Goneril´s, Regan´s and Edmond´s love and loyalty to their fathers is only pretence. The treacherous three deceivingly display an obedient children´s loving kindness towards their fathers („Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter; [...] beyond what can be valued, rich or rare, no less than life“), while in fact they are but scheming to get rid of them („The younger rises when the old doth fall“).

• „Edgar I nothing am“: In order not to be recognized and found by his persecutors, Edgar disguises himself as the strange Tom o´Bedlam, another top competitor in the allocation of Foolishness. In his pretence of being a „natural“ loony close to insanity, Edgar is apt to oustrip Lear´s Fool in his „monopoly“; at least, Lear seems to put both in the same place in his esteem regarding them as „yokefellow[s] of equity“.

Edgar´s similarity with the Fool goes even further: If the Fool „labours to outjest [Lear´s] heart-struck injuries“, then Edgar does the same regarding his father´s injuries both psychical and physical when he restores blinded Gloucesters will to live by giving him the illusion of miraculously having survived a fall from a cliff.

• Finally, considering his increasingly ecstatic condition, it may strongly be questioned whether Lear still really is himself: „Does any here know me? This is not Lear. Does Lear walk thus, speak thus? Where are his eyes? [...] Who is it that can tell me who I am?“ When it comes to identity, it may be said that at least Lear, whose „majesty falls to folly“, whose „wits are gone“ and whose fault it was to grow „old before [his] time“, is definitely not what he used to be.

Aware of the loss of his „monopoly“ in Foolishness, the Fool proclaims: „This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen“, and, as we have seen, he is justified to do so. Foolishness has spread among the play´s characters up to a point where Lear´s Fool is rivalled in his office. What happened? Obviously, there is a breech in the Natural Order again: A King retreats from his title, a loving and virtous daughter is expelled for being impudent and ungrateful, children turn against their fathers and madmen are taken for „philosopher[s]“. The Chain of Being is disordered (a King without reason and authority [Lear], a lackey who refuses service [Oswald], a bastard who by force wants to acquire legitimacy [Edmond], children who betray their father [Regan, Goneril] and a „bitter fool“ who sings „for sorrow“) and therefore identities dissolve: „Know, my name is lost“. Lear´s Fool, originally the „purveyor of illusion“, has the hard task to trade a good that is abundantly available. Subsequent to the disintegration of the normative hierarchical system, Foolishness, the negation of all norms, becomes omnipresent: Kent is adressed as a „fool“ by the official titleholder, evil Edmond derides his half brother´s „foolish honesty“, and eventually Lear himself „indeed [...] would[...] make a good fool“. Paradoxically, Lear´s share in Foolishness is greater than becomes a King, as we will see in the following.

„What wouldst thou do, old man? Think´st thou that duty shall dread to speak when power to flattery bows? To plainness honour´s bound when majesty falls to folly.“

„See better, Lear, and let me still remain the true blank of thine eye.“

Lear´s Shadow

To regard Lear´s Fool as a mere „companion to the King“ would be to irreverently underrate him and his part in the play. In this section, we will investigate the relationship between the Fool and his master and the King´s further entanglement with Foolishness.

1. Type and Anti-type

The Fool´s relation to the King is already depicted in his namelessness: Lear´s Fool does not have a name of his own like his colleagues Feste or Touchstone do, but in his nameless existence, it is the connection to Lear as represented in the genitive that gives him an identity, and bound up with the King, Lear´s Fool partly loses the independence and autonomy that on the other hand is essential for a Fool - which may already point at Lear´s Fool´s extraordinarity among his colleagues. „Who is it that can tell me who I am?“, the desperate King cries out, and wittily his Fool replies: „Lear´s shadow“. There is ambiguity within this answer. On the one hand, it expresses the observance that the increasingly demented Lear is but a shadow of his former self; on the other hand, it could as well be the naming of him who can see through confusion and illusion and tell Lear who he really is, and that is none other than the Fool himself. Like the shadow to its body, Lear and his Fool have a special antagonistic relationship that by far transcends the one of master and servant.

In the historical reality of the Middle Ages, the Fools at the royal court often took up the part of „negative masters (Negativ-Herrschern)“ whose task it was to assume „the function of their master´s typological opposites (die Funktion typologischer Gegenpole zu ihren Herren)“. As „type and anti-type (Typus und Antitypus)“, the „unreasonable fool, the insipiens (der unvernünftige Narr, der Insipiens)“ was „diametrically opposed to the king, the sapiens (als Gegenstück gegenübergestellt [...] dem König, dem Sapiens)“, and in this „combination of the wise master and the silly fool (Kombination des weisen Herrschers mit dem törichten Narren)“, a dichotomy was established in which all the virtues of the King (purity, authority, reason, wisdom, composure, honour, splendour) were contrasted by the vices of the Fool (wickedness, irresponsbility, unreasonableness, folly, mischief, carelessness, shabbiness). While the King was the incarnation of all qualities required of a virtous, godfearing head of state representing the white hope of the overcoming of all evil by „the eternal christian kingdom come (das Kommende, das ewige Königtum Christi)“, the Fool was the corrupt, blasphemic miscreant „misleading man to sinfulness (die Menschen zur Sünde verführt)“ and symbolizing „a dark and unholy time (die dunkle, gottlose Zeit)“. In the medieval concept, the Fool was a creature of truly satanical descent since „the original sin was regarded as the beginning of all Foolishness. [...] Eve, dressed in motley amongst devils, is shown to be the mother of all Foolishness. In the 15^th and 16^th centuries, Eve was a popular motif as ‚mother of all Fools` and was an accepted antithetic prefiguration of Mary. Eve, sullied by the original sin, being sinful and mother of all Fools, as a typus opposed the anti-typus of the immaculate, innocent virgin. [...] The foolish sinner [stultus] [...] was the unbeliever, the embodiment of human powerlessness and ridiculousness whereas the pious king represented wisdom, authority and honour (Erbsünde als Beginn aller Narrheit [...] Eva, unter Teufeln im Narrengewand, wird als Mutter aller Narrheit ausgewiesen. Als ‚Narrenmutter` war Eva im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert ein beliebtes Motiv und galt als antithetische Präfiguration Mariens. Sie, die Erbsündenbefleckte, Sündige und Mutter aller Narren, stand als Typus dem Antitypus der unbefleckten, reinen Jungfrau gegenüber. [...] Der Sündernarr [stultus] [...] war ein Ungläubiger, die Verkörperung menschlicher Ohnmacht und Lächerlichkeit, während der gläubige Herrscher Weisheit, Macht und Würde repräsentierte)“.

Apart from heightening the King by representing his detterent alleged opposite, the Fool had yet another purpose regarding „the partly alleged, partly factual noble descendance of the Fools (der teils vermeintlichen, teils realen fürstlichen Herkunft der Narren)“. It was a vaguely proofed belief „that many unfortunate kings deprived of their power had to spend a miserable existence at other kings´ courts. [...] [The fool] was a human danger sign and reminded his master of the thin line between the mighty king and the derided fool. [...] Thus, by confronting him with his possible ruin, the fool reminded the medieval master to always keep to the christian virtue of humility in order not to end up as a ridiculous fool (daß so mancher vom Rad der Fortuna herabgefallene, entmachtete Herrscher an den Höfen anderer Könige ein elendes Dasein fristete. [...] [Der Narr] war eine wandelnde Warnung und erinnerte seinen Herrscher daran, wie klein die Spanne zwischen dem mächtigen König und dem verlachten Toren war. [...] Somit gemahnte der Narr den mittelalterlichen Herrscher, stets die christliche Tugend der Demut zu bewahren, um nicht selbst als lächerlicher Tor zu enden [...] indem er ihm sein potentielles Ende vor Augen hielt)“.

Is this medieval concept of the relation between King and Fool reconcilable with the relation between Lear and his Fool? On the one hand, they certainly are „typological opposites“, but then, neither is Lear a model of royal souvereignty and virtue nor by any means his Fool misanthropic or malicious; if it all, it rather is the other way round. Neither Lear nor his Fool seem to quite fit in with the medieval concept, but is it any wonder really, considering that „wise men have grown foppish, and know not how their wits to wear [...] and [...] that such a king should play bo-peep and go the fools among“? Due to the breech in the Natural Order caused by Lear´s unrightful retirement and his decline, customary respective roles have become unreliable, nay inadequate, or have even been reversed.

2. The Loyal Fool

„Some good I mean to do, despite of mine own nature“: While the Fool in the medieval concept represents the King´s „dark side“, Lear´s Fool on the contrary can rather be considered as the embodiment of the brightness and reasonableness his master continuously loses; but on the other hand, he actually does the job of the „human danger sign“: „It is his task with his probing, sometimes caustic comments to cut away the cataracts of illusion which cloud Lear´s eyes“.

„Labour[ing] to outjest his [Lear´s] heart-struck injuries“, the Fool seeks to cure his master´s blindness to his own madness by mirroring it, „forcing the King to realize the depth of his folly“. Lear´s Fool does not merely make fun of either the King or anyone elso, but in his comments he exposes Lear´s unwise behaviour („Yes, indeed, thou wouldst make a good fool“), his mistake in retreating from his office and assigning his realms to his dishonest daughters („When thou clovest thy crown i´th´ middle and gavest away both parts, thou borest thine ass o´er the dirt. Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou gavest thy golden one away“) and the subsequent reversal of order („thou madest thy daughters thy mothers“), unmasks Regan´s and Goneril´s plot against their father („the hedge-sparrow has fed the cuckoo so long / that it´s had it head bit off by it young“) and even reveals to Kent the futility of his enterprise („Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following“). The questions the Fool puts to Lear are socratic lectures rather than jokes („Dost know the difference, my boy, between a bitter fool and a sweet one?“ „If a man´s brains were in´s heels, were´t not in danger of kibes?“ „Thou canst tell why one´s nose stands i´th´ middle on´s face?“) unless he does not explicitly announce his aphoristic tracts („Sirrah, I´ll teach thee a speech“ „I´ll speak a prophecy ere I go“). By constantly confronting the King with the troublesome truth of his situation he himself cannot or refuses to see, „the Fool has [...] become Lear´s alter ego, his externalized conscience“. „The Fool´s knowledge is the folly of mankind, the fool´s ability is to exorcize that folly“, and „behind his sharpest taunts there moves a tender love for Lear“.

Though he (seemingly) advises Kent to cease his efforts and turn away from the old King, Lear´s Fool is loyal to his master to an extent that hardly becomes a traditionally autonomous and independent Fool, or, as he puts it himself:. „That sir which serves and seeks for gain / and follows but for form, / will pack when it begin to rain, / and leave thee in the storm. / But I will tarry, the fool will stay, / and let the wise man fly. / The knave turns fool that runs away, / the fool no knave, pardie.“ Within these lines, the Fool points at a difference between „fool“ and Fool, and then again at a correspondence between the „fool“ and the „wise man“. Later on in the play, it actually begins to rain, and when mad Lear stands in the storm on the heath, his Fool stands by and will not leave him. If that is an action a wise man would refuse to take, then common wisdom consists of survival instinct and egocentricity rather than of unselfish love and loyalty. Such wisdom is knavery, and such knavery is foolishness, but certainly not the kind of Foolishness Lear´s Fool is committed to. „He belongs at court by right of office. And since the court is where the king is, the Fool is always at home whether in Lear´s palace or in a hovel on the heath“: The shadow always follows its body and embraces the ground on which he walks, and „so, the fool follows after“ - even to a tragic death, we may add.

3. The Royal Fool

„The sweet and the bitter fool will presently appear; the one in motley here, the other one found out there“. We have already talked about Lear´s share in Foolishness and the „depth of his folly“; the „combination of the wise master and the silly fool“ is invalid in King Lear, and instead, there is a wise Fool and a master going insane. The old King´s fall to folly draws its full tragic effect from the axiomatic assumption that the King by his wisdom, reasonableness and authority should always represent the diametrical opposite of the Fool; but now, Lear loses all of his royal virtues, „should play bo-peep and go the fools among“. Kings and Fools have swapped their places, and against all former customs it is not the Fool but Lear himself who is to be considered as the „symbol of mankind being threatened with its downfall by its own fault (Sinnbild für die durch eigenes Verschulden vom Untergang bedrohte Menschheit)“. Within the old King, sapiens, insipiens and stultus have mixed unto a fatal synthesis.

In his increasing dementia - which he is partly aware and afraid of („O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven! Keep me in temper. I would not be mad.“) - Lear loses his ability of perceptiveness and judgement, his sanity and his speech. Lear´s mental confusion is represented in his disordered and incoherent utterances that are monologues rather than dialogues („ and only seldom interrupted by moments of quasi-clarity: „Tell me whether a madman be a gentleman or a yeoman.“ - „A king, a king!“: „O, matter and impertinency mixed - reason in madness!“ In fact, Lear´s babblish, almost unintelligible style of speech, though on a higher tone, is appropriate to a gabby ‚natural` whose „wits are gone“ rather than to an honourable King - whose wits are also gone. Lear has ceased to be a King, both officially and typologically, and - reminding us of „the thin line between the mighty king and the derided fool“ - has become a Fool without possession: „O ho, are you there with me? No eyes in your head, nor no money in your purse?“ All that is left of the former King is, as he puts it himself, „a very foolish [...] old man“. We cannot but agree to Regan´s opinion that Lear „should be ruled and led by by some discretion that discerns your state better than you yourself“ - except that it should not be the dishonest daughters´ discretion but Lear´s better half´s, the Fool´s.

„Jesters do oft prove prophets.“

„´Tis time´s plague when madmen lead the blind“

The Bitter Fool and the Cassandra Tragedy

Corresponding to the whole Natural Order being disturbed, Lear´s Fool contradicts his own typological directives just as well as Lear (and nearly anyone else) does his. If in King Lear, „here´s a night pities neither wise men nor fools“ - and, regarding the ravagement of order and horror in its story, the hostility and cruelty in its incidents and the darkness in its atmosphere, the whole play might be considered as such a night - we witness a situation where there is hardly any difference left between Foolishness and wisdom, and therefore neither really exists. On the one hand, it is impossible to make out the difference between a Fool and a wise man when Foolishness equals wisdom, but on the other hand, it is also impossible to even make out a Fool when all the world behaves foolishly. Only in a world so disordered and confused can a Fool cease to be a Fool, since Foolishness is ominpresent, and only in a world in which Kings are Fools, madmen philosophers and children traitors against fathers can a Fool become a tragic hero: „Walking clear-eyed into the stormy night and to his probable death on the heath, he [Lear´s Fool] comes as close as any fool ever does to the heroic“, and his loyalty to Lear matches Kent´s or any other worthy nobleman´s. But if „the Fool´s knowledge is the folly of mankind“ and his „ability is to exorcize that folly“, then we must confess that, considering that his master would neither undo his fatal mistake nor revoke his expulsions, regain neither authority nor sanity and eventually die, Lear´s Fool has failed: He seeks to „cleanse the body of th´ infected world, / If they will patiently receive my medicine“, but his medicine is refused. A world so foolish itself cannot be cured by yet another Fool; his inability of changing anything for the good is represented by his sudden disappearance and his absence in the last two acts, and the fact „that he fails and is swept off the stage only reminds us that we are witnessing tragedy“. Thus marked out by both honour and failure, „there is no doubt that the Fool does acquire something of the stature of a tragic figure“ because unlike all other Fools, his matter is dead serious.

In fact, there is a conspicious affinity, a congeniality between Lear´s Fool and one of Greek mythology´s innumerable tragic figures, videlicet Cassandra, daughter of King Priamos of Troja. Cassandra had the talent of being able to foresee the future, but on the other hand was incapable of changing it. Though she prophesied and persistently warned of the Greek invasion, the Trojan Horse and eventually the Fall of Troja, she could not change the dreary, menacing future she saw in her visions simply because no-one paid attention to her warnings. In the end, helpless and unfortunate Cassandra was murdered by the Greek invaders whose raid she had always predicted. Friedrich Schiller poetically tells us of her destiny:

„ Freudlos in der Freude Fülle, / Ungesellig und allein, /

Wandelte Kassandra stille, / In Apollos Lorbeerhain. / [...]

‚Ich allein muß einsam trauern, / Denn mich flieht der süße Wahn, /

Und geflügelt diesen Mauern / Seh ich das Verderben nahn. / [...]

Und sie schelten meine Klagen, / Und sie höhnen meinen Schmerz. /

Einsam in die Wüste tragen / Muß ich mein gequältes Herz, /

Von den Glücklichen gemieden / Und den Fröhlichen ein Spott! /

Schweres hast du mir beschieden, / Phytischer, du arger Gott! /

Dein Orakel zu verkünden, / Warum warfest du mich hin /

In die Stadt der ewig Blinden / Mit dem aufgeschlossnen Sinn? / [...]

Meine Blindheit gib mir wieder / Und den fröhlich dunkeln Sinn! /

Nimmer sang ich freud´ge Lieder / Seit ich deine Stimme bin.`“

Cassandra´s lament almost sounds like A Fool´s Complaint. Both have in common the status of the outsider, and just like poor Cassandra, it is the Fool´s lot „to speak a truth that no-one wishes to hear unless they speak it themselves“: „If I speak like myself in this, let him be whipped that first finds it so“. Though the Fool realizes the sinister scheme that Lear´s daughters hide beneath their false pretences just as Cassandra knew the enemy hidden inside the Trojan horse, Lear is uncaring and blind against all warnings until it is too late - since „he will not believe a fool“. The „city of the ever-blinded (die Stadt der ewig Blinden)“ corresponds to Lear´s court (or even the whole setting of the play) where the Fool is the only one to realize what is going on and to speak his mind about it. Like Cassandra had ever ceased to sing any „songs of joy (freud´ge Lieder)“ since she received her horrible gift, on account of his knowledge Lear´s Fool has turned „a bitter fool“ who sings but „for sorrow“, by his conversion to cynism is „the happy ones´ derision (den Fröhlichen ein Spott)“ and lacks „the merry ignorance (den fröhlich dunkeln Sinn)“ that otherwise is so typical for Fools and by which his comical colleagues could provide delight in laughter. The last thing Cassandra and the Fool have in common is the anticipation of their own death. Cassandra clearly foresaw hers, and equally, Lear´s Fool announces his: „I´ll go to bed at noon“. In the end we learn of Lear that „my poor fool is hanged“.

If „the victim of the wise fool´s stabbing wit may bleed internally without knowing that he has been hurt“, on the other hand it is the Fool´s misfortune that Lear lets his madness lead him to his ruin without knowing that he has been warned: „This is nothing, fool.“ Lear´s Fool himself is the „unfee´d lawyer“ of his own parable who tries hard to support his master but receives nothing in return, yet even worse must witness that all his efforts are in vain: „When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again. I would have none but knaves follow it since a fool gives it“. Conclusively, „truth´s a dog must to kennel. He must be whipped out when Lady Brach may stand by th´ fire and stink.“ The Tragedy of King Lear is the tragedy of a world in which neither Foolishness is realized nor wisdom is acknowledged.

„And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.“

Bibliography

• William Shakespeare: The Tragedy of King Lear. The Folio Text, in: The Complete Works, Oxford 1988.

• William Shakespeare: The History of King Lear. The Quarto Text, in: The Complete Works, Oxford 1988.

• William Shakespeare: As You Like It, in: The Complete Works, Oxford 1988.

• William Shakespeare: Twelth Night, or What You Will, in: The Complete Works, Oxford 1988.

• William Shakespeare: Macbeth, in: The Complete Works, Oxford 1988.

• G.L. Evans: Shakespeare´s Fools: The Shadow and Substance of Drama, in:

M. Bradbury / D. Palmer (Ed.): Shakespearian Comedy, Stratford-upon-Avon-Studies 14, New York 1972.

• R.H. Goldsmith: Wise Fools in Shakespeare, East Lansing / Mich. 1955.

• C. Uhlig: Contemporary Versions of King Lear, in:

J.M. Mucciolo (Ed.): Shakespeare´s Universe: Renaissance Ideas and Conventions. Essays in Honor of W.R. Elton, Aldershot 1996.

• B. Langenbach-Flore: Shakespeares Narren und die Tradition des Hofnarrentums, Bochum 1994.

• Friedrich Schiller: Werke. Bd. 1, Berlin 1937.

William Shakespeare: The Tragedy of King Lear. The Folio Text, V.3., in: The Complete Works, Oxford 1988.

William Shakespeare: As You Like It, II.7., in: The Complete Works, Oxford 1988.

B. Langenbach-Flore: Shakespeares Narren und die Tradition des Hofnarrentums, Bochum 1994, p. 44.

R.H. Goldsmith: Wise Fools in Shakespeare, East Lansing / Mich. 1955, p. 95.

As You Like It II.7.

Langenbach-Flore 1994, p. 57.

Compare: William Shakespeare: Macbeth, I.3., in: The Complete Works, Oxford 1988.

G.L. Evans: Shakespeare´s Fools: The Shadow and Substance of Drama, in: M. Bradbury / D. Palmer (Ed.): Shakespearian Comedy, Stratford-upon-Avon-Studies 14, New York 1972, p. 147.

Ibid, p. 147.

Ibid, p. 147.

King Lear (folio), I.4.

Evans 1972, p. 148.

King Lear (folio) I.4.

Ibid, V.3.

Ibid, I.4.

Ibid, I.5.

Ibid, I.2.

Ibid, I.4.

Ibid, I.4.

Evans 1972, p. 149.

Ibid, p. 149.

Ibid, p. 148.

Ibid, p. 154.

King Lear (folio) I.4.

Ibid, I.4.

Ibid, I.4.

Ibid, I.5.

Ibid, III.2.

Evans 1972, p. 154.

Ibid, p. 154f.

William Shakespeare: The History of King Lear. The Quarto Text, Sc. 4,

in: The Complete Works, Oxford 1988.

Evans 1972, p. 154f.

King Lear (quarto) Sc. 4.

C. Uhlig: Contemporary Versions of King Lear, p. 271,

in: J.M. Mucciolo (Ed.): Shakespeare´s Universe: Renaissance Ideas and Conventions. Essays in Honor of W.R. Elton, Aldershot 1996.

Ibid, p. 271.

Ibid, p. 271.

King Lear (folio) III.4.

Ibid, I.2.

Ibid, V.3.

Ibid, I.1.

William Shakespeare: Twelth Night, or What You Will, III.1., in: The Complete Works, Oxford 1988.

As You Like It V.4.

Evans 1972, p. 155.

Goldsmith 1955, p. 63.

Evans 1972, p. 159.

King Lear (folio) I.4.

Ibid, I.1.

Ibid, III.3.

Ibid, II.2.

King Lear (quarto) Sc. 13.

King Lear (folio) III.1.

Ibid, I.4.

Ibid, I.1.

Ibid, III.6.

Ibid, I.5.

Ibid, III.4.

Ibid, III.4.

Ibid, I.4.

Ibid, V.3.

Evans 1972, p. 155.

King Lear (folio) II.2.

Ibid, I.2.

Ibid, I.5.

Ibid, I.1.

Ibid, I.1.

Goldsmith 1955, p. 95.

King Lear (folio) I.4.

Langenbach-Flore 1994, p. 44; I have translated the German original and put it in italics following the translation.

Ibid, p. 56f.

Ibid, p. 57.

Ibid, p. 58.

Ibid, p. 58ff.

Ibid, p. 44.

Ibid, p. 44f.

King Lear (folio) I.4.

Ibid, V.3.

Goldsmith 1955, p. 67.

King Lear (folio) III.1.

Goldsmith 1955, p. 65.

King Lear (folio) I.5.

Ibid, I.4.

Ibid, I.4.

Ibid, I.4.

Ibid, II.2.

Ibid, I.4.

Ibid, I.5.

Ibid, I.4.

Ibid, III.2.

Goldsmith 1955, p. 66f.

Evans 1972, p. 154f.

Goldsmith 1955, p. 99.

King Lear (folio) II.2.

Goldsmith 1955, p. 96.

King Lear (folio) I.4.

King Lear (quarto) Sc. 4.

King Lear (folio) I.4.

Langenbach-Flore 1994, p. 59.

King Lear (folio) I.5.

Ibid, III.6.

Ibid, IV.5.

Ibid, III.6.

Ibid, IV.5.

Ibid, V.1.

Ibid, II.2.

King Lear (folio) V.3.

Ibid, IV.1.

Ibid, III.2.

Goldsmith 1955, p. 65.

Evans 1972, p. 154f.

As You Like It II.7.

Goldsmith 1955, p. 98.

Ibid, p. 98.

Friedrich Schiller: Kassandra, in: ders: Werke. Bd. 1, Berlin 1937, p. 153ff.

Evans 1972, p. 155.

King Lear (folio) I.4.

Ibid, I.4.

Ibid, I.4.

Ibid, III.6.

Ibid, V.3.

Goldsmith 1955, p. 90.

King Lear (quarto) Sc. 4.

King Lear (folio) I.4.

Ibid, II.2.

Ibid, I.4.

As You Like It, II.1.

31

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