The role and function of the fool in Shakespeare's romantic comedies

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Contents

  I Introduction  3

  II Fools in:  3

1.  A Midsummer Night s Dream  3

2.  Much Ado About Nothing  5

  III The Court Jester in:  6

1.  As You Like It  6

2.  Twelfth Night  7

  IV Conclusion  8

  Works Cited  9

I. Introduction

The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly. (Shakespeare, As You Like It. (Act I, Scene II, ll. 90-93)

II Fools in:

Bottom the Weaver, a member of the group of artisans who are preparing a play for Duke Theseus’s wedding celebration, is obviously putting into question the illusionary effect a representation in the theatre is supposed to create. He does so by having a prologue written that destroys all possible illusion in The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe:

Write me a prologue and let the prologue seem to say we will do no harm with our swords, and that Pyramus is not killed indeed and (...) that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver (...).

Moreover, when considering to play the lion's part he suggests to “roar you as gently as any sucking dove” and “roar you and 'twere any nightingale” (Act I Scene II, ll. 66/67) instead of roaring fiercely in closer imitation of a real lion. Clearly, this comments on and puts into question the theatre's aspiration at substituting illusion for reality. Another important aspect of Bottom's central function in the play is that of “the agent of the plot” (Hart 1966: 46). He moves the plot forward: On the one hand, he helps to reconcile Oberon and Titania. with “his earthy stupidity and animal appearance revealing to Titania the mad folly of which that night world is capable” (Hart 1966: 33). As for Oberon, he finally takes pity on Titania in her mad frenzy of love for Bottom with his

4 ass’s head and and removes the spell he had cast on her which had made her fall in love with the first living creature she set eyes on when waking up.

On the other hand, he and his fellows are essential dramatic elements in the fundamental opposition of reason and love. They move between Athens, the realm of reason and common sense, Theseus’s sphere, and the palace wood, where Titania and Oberon rule a “world of impulse and imagination” (Hart 1966: 34). John A. Hart is right in saying that “Indeed Bottom himself sounds the keynote of this theme [of the opposition and final reconciliation of reason and imagination] when he (Bottom) says upon meeting Titania:

... to say the truth, reason and love keep little company now-a-days; the more pity that some honest neighbours will not make them friends. (Act III, Scene I, ll. 146-149)” (1966: 34)

This might lead to the conclusion that Bottom is not a fool in the literal, colloquial sense but that he possesses some insight into the two contrasting worlds. However, he is completely unaware of others and of the implications inherent of the unusual situations he is drawn into. John Hart describes Bottom’s state of mind most accurately:

Bottom proves impervious to everything. Impervious to the ass’s head- presumably he feels just as much at home with it as without it. Impervious to his new friends Titania and her night spirit who are ready to serve his every whim; his chief interests, however, are to be fed “a peck of provender” and to be left in quiet: “I have an exposition of sleep com upon me” (IV, i, 33, 41). Impervious too to the night’s experiences:

Methought I was, - and methought I had, - but man is but a patch’d fool, if he will offer to say what methought had. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, not his heart to report, what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream. It shall be called “Bottom’s Dream”, because it hath no bottom: and I will sing it in the latter end of a play, before the Duke.

(IV, i, 312-222)

Impervious, finally, to the laughter and the satirical remarks of the courtiers as the clowns play their play. (Hart 1966: 33)

Hart goes on by describing Bottom as “totally unaware of himself, most literal-minded extension of Theseus world of reason” (Hart 1966: 33). Louis Montrose agrees that "Like their companion Bottom in his liaison with Titania, the mechanicals are collectively presented in a childlike relationship to their social superiors.” (Montrose 1996: 179).