Fool in King Lear (1604-1605)

FOOL

In Elizabethan times, the role of a fool was to professionally entertain others, specifically the king.

Shakespeare also privileged the figure of the fool for his characteristic of commentator of the stage intrigues, that participates in the actions, but, at the same time, he remains extraneous of it.

Fool was an element of metatheatre and medium between illusion and reality.

In the theatrical works Shakespearian appeared the stage-fool, that reproduced the court-fool, the real person.  The stage-fool was not interpreted by any actor, but from a fool professional, that recited the folly in the life to be able to survive and that practically in the stage it recited himself.

Fool in King Lear (1604-1605) 

By using the character of the Fool in King Lear, Shakespeare intends to illustrate the imperfections in human nature by showing that all humans can be guilty of folly.

The Fool functions quite admirable as a teacher throughout the play. In fact Shakespeare utilized the Fool to instruct the king.

The fool can enter in many different types of relationship with the king. In the traditional form the king and his minstrel are coincidence of the opposite ones

The Fool sustains to always say the truth and affirms it with riddles or with the accumulation of the proverbs.

He is often threatened of lashes from the sovereign, he comments the wisecracks of the king, but he never has a real conversation with him.

First of all he is the only minstrel that speaks of himself, while the other fools are mainly described and introduced by the other characters, in a certain sense therefore it can be said that the Fool of Lear puts in scene ' the self-awareness of the character '  and in fact it is not only object of other people's rice, but it laughs at himself.