![]() ![]() Their primary purpose was to keep political leaders grounded by entertaining the court aristocracy with crude jokes and performances. And unlike their French and English counterparts, who died out by the end of the 16th century, the German fool was an active member of the court well into the 18th century. Uncouth, dirty, and devoid of all status, German court fools had little in common with the endearing and sagacious fool in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. ![]() These fools slept in the straw with the dogs.” “I wanted to talk about a different sort of fool. “People tend to think about Shakespeare’s fools,” she says. If you’re picturing a grinning clown in purple and yellow pajamas with a floppy belled hat, Outram begs you to reconsider. Her book, Four Fools in the Age of Reason: Laughter, Cruelty, and Power in Early Modern Germany (The University of Virginia Press, 2019), is out in April, and is the first study to compile the lives of four famous jesters in post-Renaissance Germany. But long before the days of Stephen Colbert and Conan O’Brien, political satire, at least in Europe, was the domain of a rather different type of character: court jesters.ĭorinda Outram, a professor emerita of history at the University of Rochester, invites buffs and satire enthusiasts alike to dive deep into the world of 18th century court jesters. In politically turbulent times, satire, by poking fun at the powerful, can dispel tension. ![]()
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