Shakespeare's Great Stage of Fools [Hardcover]

This lively, lucid book undertakes a detailed and provocative study of Shakespeare's fascination with clowns, fools, and fooling. Through close reading of plays over the whole course of Shakespeare's theatrical career,? Bell highlights the fun, wit, insights, and mysteries of some of Shakespeare's most vibrant and often vexing figures.Motley to the View Follies of Identity: A Midsummer Night's Dream The Fool's Two Bodies: The Henriad ? Feigning & Fooling in As You Like It Foolery shines everywhere: Twelfth Night? The Fate of Folly: Much Ado About Nothing Scourges of Folly Motley Tales and Strange Bedfellows? Unconsidered Trifles: A Fool's Horn Book

'Bell's thoughtful and provocative work is deeply invested in Shakespeare and the play of ideas . . . the arguments on fools in love, unpleasant scourges of folly, and foolish tragic protagonists are brimming with insight and new readings. Bell teases out subtle affinities between such diverse characters and fools, finding that foolery was central to Shakespeare's dramaturgy in ways that have previously been underestimated [in] masterful close readings. Anyone who loves Shakespeare, his fools, and their complexity will find much to engage with here.' - Robert Hornback, Comparative Drama

'This engaging book examines a broad range of foolery, folly, and fooling throughout Shakespeare's plays . . . Especially insightful is Bell's discussion of the folly of tragic heroes, Hamlet, Othello, and Lear. Precise, witty, figurative, and lyrical, Bell's writing, valuable to scholars, students, and all lovers of Shakespeare, will remain important both for its clarity and its well-substantiated, perceptive observations.' - Vicki K. Janik, Renaissance Quarterly

'Lives up to the formula of the Roman poet Horace, who urged authors to teach while delighting. Offering witty, insightful close readings that explain the ways fools help one make sense of the seemingly senseless, Bell shows how 'tl#-