As the quote says: "Dying is esay, comedy is hard." I think people tend to overlook comedies in general because as we know, true art is angsty. Thats why I found the character of the fool to be so intersting and enduring. He is witty, intelligent, funny and noble. He is also quite funny and I found it a tad troubling when I watched clips of the play and the fool was played straight. It seems that some people just can not stand the idea of a character being simultaneously funny and serious or perhaps people choose to ignore Shakespeare's more comedic qualities in oder to focus on the drama. Either way I find it disservices both the character and the writer.
Another intersting aspect of the fool is his relationship with Lear. The fool is the one character in the play that Lear is consistently affectionate to and he is the only one who is spared from Lears fury when contridicting him. In fact the fool can get away with out right criticism without angering Lear. One may argue that fools are genuinely exempt from the standards of normal scociety, but in act 1 scene 4 the fool states "They'll have me whipped for speaking true, thou'llt have me whiped for lying, and sometimes I'm whipped for holding my peace." so that is not exactally the case.
The fool is an interesting character acting as the chorus, commentator, and comic relief, if you let him.
New Paltz Students Blogging about Shakespeare
5 comments:
Nice, Chris. You bring up some good points about the performance of the fool and your preference for more of the comic impulse. It's ironic, I think, that you call Lear affectionate to the Fool. I totally agree with you don't get me wrong, but it's funny that his affection is coupled with blunted teasing of him that's kinda missed up way for an employer to be constantly talking to their employee. I guess that's what adds the humor and the comic impulse so special. We know and the fool knows that the real joke is on Lear.
I agree with the points you made about the fool and the fool's relationship with Lear. I think that the fool serves as a comic relief for the play, a much needed one since the majority of the play is filled with death and manipulation. The fool helps in making the play seem a little bit lighter and not so heavy in morbid content.
I totally agree with you about productions completely ignoring the humor in shakespeare or even contemporary theatre! This has always baffled me, because if you stop and think about it, most of the time what makes something really funny is that it has some sort of sad truth. And comedy is far easier to digest than tragedy. If productions would just play it the way the text is written I think a lot of the sad truth would resonate on a deeper level!
I completely agree that the Fool is a vital comedic part of the play. The Fool is most effective when he is the opposite of everyone else's mood. I also see the strange bond between Lear and the Fool. I think Lear finds a certain kind of companionship in the madness and truthfulness of the Fool. The Fool is speaking the truth about many things and I think that resonates with the state that Lear is in. Lear and the Fool is an odd way understand and respect each other despite their class differences.
You make some pretty good points here about the Fool. I found the Fool to be one of my favorite characters in the play because of the fact that he was able to say what he pleased without being reprimanded. Maybe, subconsciously or not, Lear knows that the Fool is the only one he can truly trust and will be the one who tells him the truth without holding back.
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