Wise fool
The wise fool, or the wisdom of the fool, is a form of literary paradox in which, through a narrative, a character recognized as a fool comes to be seen as a bearer of wisdom.[2] A recognizable trope found in stories and artworks from antiquity to the twenty-first century, the wisdom of the fool often captures what Intellectualism fails to illuminate of a thing's meaning or significance; thus, the wise fool is often associated with the wisdom found through blind faith, reckless desire, hopeless romance, and wild abandon, but also tradition without understanding, and folk wisdom.
In turn, the wise fool is often opposed to learned or elite knowledge.[2] While examples of the paradox can be found in a wide range of early world literature, from Greco-Roman works to the oral traditions of folk culture, the paradox received unprecedented attention from authors and artists during the Renaissance.[2] More than Shakespeare for his range of clownish wise men or Cervantes for his lunatic genius Don Quijote, sixteenth century scholar Erasmus is often credited for creating the definitive wise fool and most famous paradox in western literature[3] through his portrayal of Stultitia, the goddess of folly. Influential to all later fools, she shows the foolish ways of the wise and the wisdom of fools through delivering her own eulogy, The Praise of Folly.[4]
Characteristics
In his article "The Wisdom of The Fool", Walter Kaiser illustrates that the varied names and words people have attributed to real fools in different societies when put altogether reveal the general characteristics of the wise fool as a literary construct: "empty-headed (μάταιος, inanis, fool), dull-witted (μῶρος, stultus, dolt, clown), feebleminded (imbécile, dotard), and lacks understanding (ἄνοος, ἄφρων in-sipiens); that he is different from normal men (idiot); that he is either inarticulate (Tor) or babbles incoherently (fatuus) and is given to boisterous merrymaking (buffone); that he does not recognize the codes of propriety (ineptus) and loves to mock others (Narr); that he acts like a child (νήπιος); and that he has a natural simplicity and innocence of heart (εὐήθης, natural, simpleton).[2]
While society reprimands violent maniacs, destined to be locked away in jails or asylums, the harmless fool often receives kindnesses and benefits from the social elite. who works in the royal court and remains the only character who Lear does not severely punish for speaking his mind about the king and his precarious situations. This ability to be reckless, honest, and free with language has greatly contributed to the wise fool's popularity in the literary imagination.
History
Antiquity
The employment and occupation of the fool played a significant role in the ancient world. The Ancient Greek authors
Numerous scholars have long regarded Socrates as the paramount wise fool of
Medieval
The wise fool manifested most commonly throughout the Middle Ages as a religious figure in stories and poetry. During the
Renaissance
The wise fool received tremendous popularity in the literary imagination during the
At the same time, Shakespeare greatly helped popularize the wise fool in the English theater through incorporating the trope in a variety of characters throughout many of his plays.[16] While Shakespeare's early plays largely portray the wise fool in comic terms as a buffoon, the later plays characterize the fool in a much more melancholic and contemplative light.[16] For example, in King Lear,[7] the Fool becomes the only one capable of speaking truth to the King and often takes on the role of revealing life's tragic nature to those around him. For Shakespeare, the trope became so well known that when Viola says of the clown Feste in Twelfth Night, "This fellow is wise enough to play the fool" (III.i.60), his audiences recognized it as a popular convention.[2]
Numerous other authors rendered interpretations of the wise fool across the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries from Hans Sachs to Montaigne. The image of the wise fool is as well found in numerous Renaissance artworks by a range of artists including Breughel, Bosch, and Holbein the Younger.[2] In Spain, Cervantes' novel Don Quixote exemplifies the world of the wise fool through both its title character and his companion, Sancho Panza.[17]
Examples in modern literature and film
- Patchface, from Red Wedding.[18]
- Gaston Bonaparte, from the Japanese writer Shusaku Endo's 1959 novel Wonderful Fool: protagonist Bonaparte is portrayed as a relative of Napoleon Bonaparte who visits Japan. He bumbles his way through troubles by naively ignoring or not understanding a series of problems and attacks, but leaves his Japanese friends enlightened.[19]
Heimir the Fool, in The Northman movie says “Wise enough to be the fool.”
See also
- Comedian
- Savant syndrome
- Court jester
- Feast of Fools
- Fool (stock character)
- Hero (comic hero)
- Shakespearian fool
- Solomon and Marcolf
Further reading
- Idiots, Madmen, and Other Prisoners in Dickens by Natalie McKnight[20]
- "The Wise Fool in the Slavic Oral and Literary Tradition" by Zuzana Profantová[21]
- The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays[22] by Michail Bachtin
- Wise Fools in Shakespeare by Robert Goldsmith[23]
- "The Wisdom of Holy Fools in Postmodernity" by Peter C. Phan[24]
- "Much Virtue In If" (Shakespeare Quarterly) by Maura Slattery Kuhn[25]
Notes
- PMID 19843889.
- ^ OCLC 55800981.
- OCLC 778636649.
- ISBN 9781400866083
- ^ "CalmView: Overview (Swedish Performing Arts Agency)". calmview.statensmusikverk.se. Retrieved 2018-11-29.
- ^ OCLC 25707836.
- ^ OCLC 931813845.
- OCLC 908430812.
- ^ "Site officiel du musée du Louvre". cartelfr.louvre.fr (in French). Retrieved 2018-11-04.
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary under irony.
- OCLC 1050649303.
- OCLC 148646349.
- ^ Javadi, Hasan. "MOLLA NASREDDIN i. THE PERSON". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Archived from the original on 17 November 2015. Retrieved 2015-12-07.
- S2CID 187611672.
- OCLC 42855542.
- ^ a b "Shakespeare's fools". The British Library. Retrieved 2018-10-09.
- JSTOR 3725864.
- OCLC 816446630.
- ^ Endo, Shusako (1959), おバカさん Obaka san (Wonderful Fool), Wonderful Fool (Harpers 1974 translated by Francis Mathy, Chuo
- OCLC 26809921.
- ISSN 1581-128X.
- OCLC 900153702.
- OCLC 489984679.
- S2CID 73527317.
- JSTOR 2869630.