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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
In eight pages this paper analyzes the importance of the Fool character to William Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear with an assessment of three critics’ opinions along with personal observations about the character’s significance. Four sources are listed in the bibliography.
Page Count:
8 pages (~225 words per page)
File: TG15_TGlearfool.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
action, but ultimately served as the classical plays voice of moral reason (286). However, by the sixteenth century, the Fool began losing popular favor; William Shakespeare restored his theatrical
significance. In his plays, the Bard frequently made masterful use of the fool not only as a unique character in his own right, but also as structurally as the
glue that holds the plot together. Of one of Shakespeares most memorable incarnations of the Fool, in his tragedy King Lear, critic R.A. Foakes acknowledged that his "dramatic importance"
exceeded his actual role, which consisted of approximately "225 lines in six scenes" (133). Foakes also admits in his literary criticism that although critics may agree on the Fools
significance to the play as a whole, they vary considerably about how the character should be perceived with some believing him to be clairvoyant, others conceptualizing him as either a
boy or an old man, or androgynous and serving as Cordelias "alter ego" (133). He considers how the Fool has been in various productions depicted as the Kings conscience
or representing "a voice of social protest" (133). As far as A.C. Bradley is concerned, Shakespeares play and chief protagonist might be King Lear, but if there
were no Fool, there would be - in his opinion - no play. In Shakespearean Tragedy, Bradley proclaims, "The Fool is one of Shakespeares triumphs in King Lear.
Imagine the tragedy without him, and you hardly know it. To remove him would spoil its harmony, as the harmony of a picture would be spoiled if one of
the colors were extracted" (286). He argues that any assumptions that the Fool is completely lucid and merely "pretending to be half-witted" are incorrect (Bradley 287). According to
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