Wise Fools In Shakespeare

I recently received a lovely one-volume Oxford Complete Works of Shakespeare, as Shakespeare has long been a favorite playwright of mine. Despite having lived more than four hundred years ago, his plays speak to modern concerns about militarism (Coriolanus), relations between church and state (King Henry VIII, King John), the difference between fantasy and reality (The Tempest, A Winter's Tale, A Midsummer Night's Dream), the problems of feminism (Taming of the Shrew, All's Well That Ends Well), the problems of legitimacy of authority (all of the historical plays, especially Richard II and Richard III, as well as Henry V, besides Macbeth and Hamlet, and other plays besides this), racism (The Merchant of Venice, Othello), problems in dealing with old age (King Lear), the problems of premature romance (Romeo & Juliet), the effects of moral depravity on society (Trolius and Cressida, Measure For Measure), the difficulties in maintaining one's morality in a corrupt society (Measure For Measure as well as Perseus) and so on and so forth. Rare among fiction authors, there are few areas of human behavior that Shakespeare does not touch on in his 40 plays (this includes the 36 plays of his first folio, Perseus, The Two Noble Kinsmen, Edward III, and the long lost Cardenio).

However, today I would like to discuss an odd character perhaps best exemplified in Twelfth Night's Feste and King Lear's Fool, something that this society could probably use more of. That is the phenomenon of the wise fool. Both of these characters are the wisest and most clear-headed of all the characters in their respective plays. The fool had a valuable place in the society of the Middle Ages and the early modern period. The fool, rare among people, had freedom of speech, and was expected to make witty and sarcastic comments about rulers and courtiers alike. In a society (not unlike many parts of our own society) where flattery of leaders was treasured and bluntspoken honesty was not, the fool could speak the truth, and would find his words laughed at and appreciated rather than punished and censured. This is because the fool had no political ambitions, and his honesty and skill at witty sarcasm earned him his keep, rather than the decietful words of lying advisors with their own personal agendas. A wise ruler paid close attention to his fool, and woe falls to the ruler who does not keep an honest fool (like Richard II) or does not pay sufficient attention to his fool (King Lear).

Indeed, Shakespeare's plays are set up so that those characters who mock fools, even in comedies (Twelfth Night's Malvolio) end up badly. This is because Shakespeare's fools, though their language is sometimes cryptic (though most often not terribly difficult to discover), are quite honest truthtellers. Perhaps Shakespeare saw himself as a bit of a fool--his job being to entertain the public, but also seeing himself as a wise and knowledgeable spectator of human behavior, capable of delivering great insight to those who took his words seriously. Indeed, it is the disguising of great wisdom in the guise of folly (because most people, except the most tiresome and serious among us, will choose frivolity and entertainment over serious subjects) that allows his points to sink home so well, and accounts for his lasting fame and his appeal to scholarly minds and constant reinterpretations (witness the recent movies Ten Things I Hate About You, O, She's The Man, besides the various Kenneth Barnaugh adaptations of Shakespeare's plays). Shakespeare neither bored his audience by being too serious (he would throw in passionate lovers, mistaken identities, fighting, songs, and spectacles to keep the peanut gallery entertained), but he never sold out to merely creating worthless entertainment. Even his most superficial of plays contains much of depth and interest that is worthy of serious reflection. This is because Shakespeare himself was quite astute in viewing people and had a solid grounding in classical literature from the sacred (the Bible), to historical works in his own language (Holinshed's Chronicles), as well as classic literature in several languages (Latin, Italian, and French, at the very least).

It is a shame we in our modern society suffer from a lack of wise fools. That is not to say we do not have fools (I would consider myself one, and in various fashions I am sure others would agree--some in the friendlier sense of a Feste, others perhaps in a more Proverbial sense for those more hostile). Our society has no lack of people who speak and write as experts on subjects, but these people all seem to be motivated by some kind of positional ambition or some kind of ulterior motives and thus are difficult to trust. Instead of the reminders of King Lear's fool about the need for social justice, we have films made by politically ambitious actors ("Syriana") or dramatically challenged failed politicians ("An Inconvenient Truth"). In short, we have plenty of self-proclaimed wise men, and plenty of fools, but no wise fools whose truth-telling is divorced from political spin and the need to dissemble for one's own ambitions of wealth, power, and influence. The wise fool is necessary precisely because he is free of such concerns, and so can fulfill the request of David in Psalm 141:5 to provide stinging, but ultimately beneficial, truth. A wise fool specializes in constructive critism--never going overboard either with flattery or with railing and hostile accusations. Personally, it is a balance I myself wish to find--someday...