18th century, dramatic character, Europe, German, Germany, play, primary source, quotes
Ludwig Tieck’s play Puss-in-Boots (1796) features a court scholar who in the king’s eyes has the same status and function as the jester, as he explains while hurling his sceptre at the scholar’s head: Sir Brazenbold of Scholarship! What presumption...
17th century, 18th century, bibliography, book, canon, China, Chinese, dramatic character, East Asia, historical figure, play, primary source
There are several plays featuring Dongfang Shuo 東方朔 (c. 160 – c. 93 BCE) as a jester. Apart from an anonymous and non-extant Ming dynasty variety play called simply Dongfang Shuo, there is a twenty act chuanqi play by Wu Dexiu 吾德修 (fl.c. 1692) entitled The...
18th century, England, Europe, historical figure, primary source, quotes, Stuart
Court account books in Europe provide a rich seam of information on the material care and remuneration paid to jesters. This entry, however, is the first I have seen which amounts to an IOU. The ‘late King William’ is clearly William III (better known as...
18th century, East Asia, gallery, historical figure, Japan, painting, primary source
This is a personal favourite among many depictions available of Dongfang Shuo 東方朔 (c. 160 – c. 93 BCE), although it was created nearly 2,000 years after he lived. By an 18th-19th century Japanese artist, Torei Hijikata 土方稲嶺 (1741-1807), it conveys the energy...
18th century, Europe, France, French, historical figure, primary source, quotes, stories
Folly, as Shakespeare taught us, can be used as a stalking horse, providing useful cover so that you can launch arrows of wit or criticism without too much risk of reprisal. A number of jesters ‘faked’ folly the better to enjoy the freedoms it could...
18th century, gallery, India, primary source
A curious drawing, from the late 18th century, of a named dwarf dancing in the presence of a pair of Indian soldiers (‘sepoys’ in the title of the sketch). I stumbled across this in the same search that yielded a 17th century Dutch painting of a dancing...
18th century, gallery, India, primary source
This sketch of an individual, done by an Anglo-Indian artist around 1790, has the intriguing title of ‘A fool named Gungarum’. At first I wondered if it was a portrait of a recognised or quasi-professional fool, but noting the similarity between the...
18th century, dramatic character, England, gallery, primary source
This arresting drawing, by the Swiss artist Henry Fuseli (Johann Heinrich Füssli) (1741-1825), depicts Edgar feigning madness and approaching King Lear whose madness is painfully real. Its clean, strong lines seem to echo Blake’s style. Also on Lear, see this...
