Download or read book Fools and Jesters in Literature Art and History written by Vicki K. Janik and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1998-05-21 with total page 571 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jesters and fools have existed as important and consistent figures in nearly all cultures. Sometimes referred to as clowns, they are typological characters who have conventional roles in the arts, often using nonsense to subvert existing order. But fools are also a part of social and religious history, and they frequently play key roles in the rituals that support and shape a society's system of beliefs. This reference book includes alphabetically arranged entries for approximately 60 fools and jesters from a wide range of cultures. Included are entries for performers from American popular culture, such as Woody Allen, Mae West, Charlie Chaplin, and the Marx Brothers; literary characters, such as Shakespeare's Falstaff, Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, and Singer's Gimpel; and cultural and mythological figures, such as India's Birbal, the American circus clown, the Native American Coyote, Taishu Engeki of Japan, Hephaestus, Loki the Norse fool, schlimiels and schlimazels, and the drag queen. The entries, written by expert contributors, are critical as well as informative. Each begins with a biographical, artistic, religious, or historical background section, which places the subject within a larger cultural and historical context. A description and analysis follow. This section may include a discussion of the fool's appearance, gender role, ethical and moral roles, social function, and relationship to such themes as nature, time, and mortality. The entry then discusses the critical reception of the subject and concludes with an extensive bibliography of general works.
Download or read book Fools and Jesters at the English Court written by John Southworth and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2011-11-30 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fools have been a feature of virtually every recorded culture in the history of civilization, making significant contributions to the development of early theatre and literary drama. This book offers a reign by reign chronicle of English court fools.
Download or read book Fools Are Everywhere written by Beatrice K. Otto and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2001-04 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this lively work, Beatrice K. Otto takes us on a journey around the world in search of one of the most colorful characters in history—the court jester. Though not always clad in cap and bells, these witty, quirky characters crop up everywhere, from the courts of ancient China and the Mogul emperors of India to those of medieval Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas. With a wealth of anecdotes, jokes, quotations, epigraphs, and illustrations (including flip art), Otto brings to light little-known jesters, highlighting their humanizing influence on people with power and position and placing otherwise remote historical figures in a more idiosyncratic, intimate light. Most of the work on the court jester has concentrated on Europe; Otto draws on previously untranslated classical Chinese writings and other sources to correct this bias and also looks at jesters in literature, mythology, and drama. Written with wit and humor, Fools Are Everywhere is the most comprehensive look at these roguish characters who risked their necks not only to mock and entertain but also to fulfill a deep and widespread human and social need.
Download or read book Fools Clowns and Jesters written by Paul Cline and published by Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers. This book was released on 1983 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Defines and analyzes the appearance, the expression of duality, the response to tragedy, the relation to reality, and the future of the fool, the clown, and the jester
Download or read book The History of Court Fools written by John Doran and published by . This book was released on 1858 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Four Fools in the Age of Reason written by Dorinda Outram and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2019-04-12 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unveiling the nearly lost world of the court fools of eighteenth-century Germany, Dorinda Outram shows that laughter was an essential instrument of power. Whether jovial or cruel, mirth altered social and political relations. Outram takes us first to the court of Frederick William I of Prussia, who emerges not only as an administrative reformer and notorious militarist but also as a "master of fools," a ruler who used fools to prop up his uncertain power. The autobiography of the itinerant fool Peter Prosch affords a rare insider’s view of the small courts in Catholic south Germany, Austria, and Bavaria. Full of sharp observations of prelates and princes, the autobiography also records episodes of the extraordinary cruelty for which the German princely courts were notorious. Joseph Fröhlich, court fool in Dresden, presents more appealing facets of foolery. A sharp salesman and hero of the Meissen factories, he was deeply attached to the folk life of fooling. The book ends by tying the growth of Enlightenment skepticism to the demise of court foolery around 1800. Outram’s book is invaluable for giving us such a vivid depiction of the court fool and especially for revealing how this figure can shed new light on the wielding of power in Enlightenment Europe.
Download or read book Fools and idiots written by Irina Metzler and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2016-02-01 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book devoted to the cultural history in the pre-modern period of people we now describe as having learning disabilities. Using an interdisciplinary approach, including historical semantics, medicine, natural philosophy and law, it considers a neglected field of social and medical history and makes an original contribution to the problem of a shifting concept such as 'idiocy'. Medieval physicians, lawyers and the schoolmen of the emerging universities wrote the texts which shaped medieval definitions of intellectual ability and its counterpart, disability. In studying such texts, which form part of our contemporary scientific and cultural heritage, we gain a better understanding of which people were considered to be intellectually disabled and how their participation and inclusion in society differed from the situation today.
Download or read book A Banquet of Jests and Merry Tales written by Archie Armstrong and published by . This book was released on 1889 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fools are Everywhere written by Beatrice K. Otto and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Fools of Shakespeare written by Frederick B. Warde and published by . This book was released on 1913 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I have found occasion in several instances, to differ with some of the well known Shakespearean scholars; but it must always be remembered that I speak from the viewpoint of the actor, for whom, and for whom alone the plays were written. I have not entered the literary dissecting room, nor invaded the realm of psychology. The line of demarcation between humor and imbecility, folly and insanity, I leave to the professional alienist. I have taken the characters as they appear in the plays and as I conceive the author intended them, with due reference to their relation to the other characters. - Preface.
Download or read book Thirteenth Night written by Alan R. Gordon and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1999 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A 13th century mystery set in Italy whose protagonist is a professor in a school for fools, which trains jesters and magicians. He investigates the murder of a count. A first novel.
Download or read book The Lark s Lament written by Alan Gordon and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-05-13 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1204 A.D., the Fools' Guild is under attack from the forces of Pope Innocent III. Theophilos and Claudia, jesters with the Guild, are sent to enlist the help of a former guild member - the troubador Folquet, now a Cistercian abbot. But while they are at the abbey pleading their case, a gruesome murder takes place - a monk is killed in the librarium and a cryptic message written on the wall in his blood. With everything on the line, Theophilos, his wife, and their apprentice go off in search of the meaning of the message, uncovering a long-ago series of events that will prove to be as deadly now as they were then.
Download or read book Clowns Fools and Picaros written by David Robb and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 2007 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By its very nature the clown, as represented in art, is an interdisciplinary phenomenon. In whichever artform it appears - fiction, drama, film, photography or fine art - it carries the symbolic association of its usage in popular culture, be it ritual festivities, street theatre or circus. The clown, like its extended family of fools, jesters, picaros and tricksters, has a variety of functions all focussed around its status and image of being "other." Frequently a marginalized figure, it provides the foil for the shortcomings of dominant discourse or the absurdities of human behaviour. Clowns, Fools and Picaros represents the latest research on the clown, bringing together for the first time studies from four continents: Europe, America, Africa and Asia. It attempts to ascertain commonalities, overlaps and differences between artistic expressions of the "clownesque" from these various continents and genres, and above all, to examine the role of the clown in our cultures today. This volume is of interest for scholars of political and comic drama, film and visual art as well as scholars of comparative literature and anthropology.
Download or read book The Fool His Social and Literary History written by Enid Welsford and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The King s Fool written by Dana Fradon and published by Dutton Childrens Books. This book was released on 1993 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the role of fools or jesters in medieval and Renaissance society and describes such individuals as Will Sommers of sixteenth-century England and Querno of sixteenth-century Italy.
Download or read book Thirteenth Night written by Alan Gordon and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2000-11-15 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twelfth Night is for revelry, Thirteenth Night is for revelations... "Orsino is dead." The message sends the jester Feste, disguised as a German merchant, back to the duchy where, years earlier, he had foiled the plans of Saladin's agent, Malvolio, and secured the duchy for Orsino and his bride, Viola. As agent of the Fool's Guild, Feste must uncover the cause of Orsino's death, be it accidental, suicide, or murder. Has Malvolio returned to win the revenge he swore? Or has another, more sinister cabal plunged the duchy into political upheaval? Set in a brilliantly recreated time of pageantry and squalor, THIRTEENTH NIGHT brings alive a world long vanished. From the fetid canals of Venice to the high seas to the castles and hidden Roman tunnels of Orsino, here is a tale that will keep readers in its thrall until its dramatic and unexpected final scene...
Download or read book Jester Leaps In written by Alan Gordon and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2000-11-12 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Featuring Theophilos of the Fool's Guild.
