Examples Of Foolishness In Shakespeare
Helen Palmer
Shakespeare
Spring Semester 2012
Foolishness and Wisdom in Shakespeare: Turnabout Makes a Fair Play
After reading the Shakespeare plays we were assigned this semester, one thing in particular caught my interest. It was the turnabout in the tetralogy; the turn from foolishness to wisdom and being changed by the choices made. The choices made become catalysts. The protagonist is broken down into base components and re-forged into a new being. Even the antagonists are changed. The only character that doesn’t seem to be affected is the Fool, who is an amalgam of both foolishness and wisdom. Shakespeare used the interaction and transition between the foolishness and wisdom of the kings to form the crux of these plays for the …show more content…
They are faced with their shortcomings and through circumstance are forced to take a look deep inside themselves and make a change.
Richard II was a vain, petty young man who hadn’t learned that when he put on the crown he became more than himself and his desires. He grew up with power yet didn’t understand that the power was not for his sole benefit but derived from adding the personhood of the state to his own. He surrounded himself with people that fed his sole ego and foolishly listened when they told him what he wanted to hear. When faced with defeat, he found wisdom and recognized his duty to a duality that had become lost to him. In being broken, he was made whole and gained the right to his …show more content…
He has a plan to gain the throne and his father’s respect. He plays at being foolish; he commits crime, consorts with criminals, drinks, and gambles. But he reasons that this is will be all to his good when “like bright metal on a sullen ground, My reformation, glittering o’er my fault, Shall show more goodly, and attract more eyes, Than that which hath no foil to set it off.” It all culminates in Prince Hal. He has learned from history; how Bolingbroke was the foil to Richard’s selfish by seeming to promote the welfare of the common man and by the foil that Richard played to Bolingbroke by regaining his divine kingship in Bolingbroke’s usurpation of it. In Henry V, the prince, now king, has in fact taken the reins of both. He acted common to gain the common people as a reflection of his father’s wisdom in seeking to gain the support of the commons and he restores Richard’s divine right of rule. Prince Hal is the amalgam of
Shakespeare
Spring Semester 2012
Foolishness and Wisdom in Shakespeare: Turnabout Makes a Fair Play
After reading the Shakespeare plays we were assigned this semester, one thing in particular caught my interest. It was the turnabout in the tetralogy; the turn from foolishness to wisdom and being changed by the choices made. The choices made become catalysts. The protagonist is broken down into base components and re-forged into a new being. Even the antagonists are changed. The only character that doesn’t seem to be affected is the Fool, who is an amalgam of both foolishness and wisdom. Shakespeare used the interaction and transition between the foolishness and wisdom of the kings to form the crux of these plays for the …show more content…
They are faced with their shortcomings and through circumstance are forced to take a look deep inside themselves and make a change.
Richard II was a vain, petty young man who hadn’t learned that when he put on the crown he became more than himself and his desires. He grew up with power yet didn’t understand that the power was not for his sole benefit but derived from adding the personhood of the state to his own. He surrounded himself with people that fed his sole ego and foolishly listened when they told him what he wanted to hear. When faced with defeat, he found wisdom and recognized his duty to a duality that had become lost to him. In being broken, he was made whole and gained the right to his …show more content…
He has a plan to gain the throne and his father’s respect. He plays at being foolish; he commits crime, consorts with criminals, drinks, and gambles. But he reasons that this is will be all to his good when “like bright metal on a sullen ground, My reformation, glittering o’er my fault, Shall show more goodly, and attract more eyes, Than that which hath no foil to set it off.” It all culminates in Prince Hal. He has learned from history; how Bolingbroke was the foil to Richard’s selfish by seeming to promote the welfare of the common man and by the foil that Richard played to Bolingbroke by regaining his divine kingship in Bolingbroke’s usurpation of it. In Henry V, the prince, now king, has in fact taken the reins of both. He acted common to gain the common people as a reflection of his father’s wisdom in seeking to gain the support of the commons and he restores Richard’s divine right of rule. Prince Hal is the amalgam of