review, Spanish
Fools Are Everywhere has had a few pretty enthusiastic reviews over the years, but this is the first one by video, and we are honoured to be included in ‘La Biblioteca Ideal’ (The Ideal Library) of José María Bellido Morillas. This is a lively review (in...
16th century, 17th century, bibliography, book chapter, engraving, Europe, fooleum, Germany, Netherlands, painting, print, research, woodcut
Kenneth Craig’s excellent paper takes a sweeping look at examples of fool-peeping-through-fingers paintings and prints, as presented in our Five Guys Named Moe series. Like Cavalli-Björkman’s earlier paper, but more comprehensively, it discusses the...
16th century, bibliography, Europe, fooleum, journal paper, Netherlands, painting, research
Cavalli-Björkman, at the time curator at the National Museum in Stockholm, wrote this paper when the museum acquired the ‘Laughing Jester’, the first in our ‘Five Guys Named Moe’ series of fool-peeping-through-fingers paintings, this one also...
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...
16th century, book, Europe, primary source
Today’s the day you can be sureYou can’t avoid and shouldn’t ignore,The day that we can all affordto lark about and at last accordOurselves the time to take time outAnd raise a glass and merrily shoutIn praise of Folly, the saucy goddess whoBrings...
2nd century BCE, bibliography, canon, China, Chinese, East Asia, folk fool, Han dynasty, historical figure, primary source, quotes, stories
One of many sources concerning the clever and outspoken Dongfang Shuo 東方朔 (c. 160 – c. 93 BCE), part courtier, part jester and, according to some more outlandish claims, a Daoist immortal. Known among ordinary people for his dazzling wit and intricate riddles,...
16th century, 17th century, bibliography, book chapter, England, Europe, France, historical figure, Italy, research, Spain
During a few hundred years the European aristocracy had something of a mania for dwarfs, ‘natural’ fools, and other humans of physical or mental difference or disability. Their relationships with these people of more humble backgrounds can be complex,...
10th century, bibliography, canon, China, Chinese, East Asia, historical figure, primary source, quotes, stories, Tang dynasty
Ouyang Xiu’s 歐陽脩 (1007-72) ‘Lingguan zhuan’ 伶官傳 (Biographies of Jesters) in the New History of the Five Dynasties is a key primary source for Chinese accounts of jesters at the court of Tang Zhuangzong 後唐莊宗 (r. 923-26), with particular emphasis on...
