17th century, historical figure, Persia, Persian, primary source, quotes, stories
The Persian Safavid king Shāh ʿAbbās I (r. 1588-1629) seems to have had several jesters, including, unusually, a woman. Another jester was Kal ʿEnāyat (‘ ʿEnāyat the Bald’, d. 1608), baldness being a time-honoured attribute often associated with fools...
17th century, historical figure, Persia, Persian, primary source, quotes, stories
Gianni Izzo’s excellent article on jesters of the Persian Safavid and Zand courts shines a light on additional Persian jesters (that is, perhaps ‘new’ to a Western audience). Rich new seams of anecdotes, primary sources, mini-biographies and great...
dramatic character, fictive fool, folk fool, historical figure, quotes, stories
Dear Friends of Fools, Happy to announce you can now also follow the fool on our recently launched Instagram account. See you there (and here, of course). And thank you for your continuing support, next batch of anecjokes coming up soon… Yours, in joy and...
folk fool, historical figure, stories
Delighted to announce the launch of a short animated lesson on fools, developed with TED Education. Join over a million others in watching this playful five-minute video, also available on YouTube. And feel free to use the teaching prompts if you’re in the...
10th century, China, Chinese, East Asia, historical figure, primary source, quotes, stories, Tang dynasty
A skill often attributed to jesters is the capacity to improvise verse, which they could do for fun or to mock or criticize, as we’ve seen elsewhere. Here we have Jing Xinmo 鏡新磨 (Newly Polished Mirror), jester to the emperor Tang Zhuangzong 唐莊宗 (r. 923-26),...
18th century, East Asia, fooleum, historical figure, Japan, painting, portrait, primary source
A depiction of the Chinese jester Dongfang Shuo東方朔 (c. 160 – c. 93 BCE) by another Japanese artist, Matsumura Goshun (1752-1811). Curiously, it is a near contemporary of a similar painting by Torei Hijikata (1741-1807). Dongfang Shuo was a multi-faceted character,...
17th century, England, English, Europe, historical figure, primary source, quotes, Scotland, stories, Stuart
All kinds of stories are told about the background from which various court jesters emerged, and some may even be true. Or we know at least that the jester was for real but we can’t be sure about the recruitment trajectory. This is one of the more original...
China, dramatic character, Europe, folk fool, historical figure, painting, portrait
As part of the Festival of the Fool, we invite you to join this lively, illustrated online presentation, in which Beatrice Otto will share some gems from the virtual museum of fools and jesters she is building, taking us on a short walk through ‘The...
