China, East Asia, quotes, research
There is much common ground between jesters and actors, particularly comic actors. Jesters could perform in court entertainments, whether impromptu skits or full-blown plays or masques. Similarly, actors could play the role of a jester either as a character in a...
19th century, China, Chinese, East Asia, historical figure, play, primary source, Qing dynasty, quotes, stories
An actor who showed all the signs of being a jester was He Jiasheng 何家聲 (What Family Reputation). During the reign of the Guangxu Emperor (r. 1875-1908) he used an improvised pun to comment on the lack of reform in government.In the play Clear Brook Cave, he acted...
19th century, China, Chinese, dramatic character, East Asia, historical figure, play, primary source, Qing dynasty, quotes
Perhaps a Chinese equivalent to the Elizabethan Richard Tarlton in being a widely loved and acclaimed comic actor and a self-appointed ad hoc court jester was Liu Gansan 劉趕三 (1817-94), who had all the outspokenness of a jester and:left behind him the reputation of a...
2nd century, Europe, historical figure, Italy, Latin, primary source, quotes, Roman
Emperor Verus (r. 161-69) perhaps surpasses most other emperors in his enthusiasm for entertainers of all sorts, and the comment in the Scriptores Historiae Augustae, wry in its description of his delight in them, recognizes jesters as mimes. He seems to have...
16th century, dramatic character, Europe, France, French, primary source, quotes
Like his court jester counterpart, the fool in French medieval drama was somehow on the edge of the arena of action and therefore more independent – it seems writers made more effort to vary his characterization than with other roles, or alternatively creativity...
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...
bibliography, book, canon, England, Europe, folk fool, France, German, Germany, Greece, historical figure, Italy, primary source, research, Russia, Spain, Turkey
Published in 1789, Flögel’s hefty 500+ page history of court jesters is breathtaking in its scope and scholarship; arguably the first serious such sweeping study in any Western language. It is the well-spring from which many subsequent leading works draw,...
bibliography, book, canon, China, Chinese, East Asia, historical figure, primary source, research
For any serious study of Chinese jesters, this is the ‘Bible’, bringing together practically the full spectrum of primary source accounts of jester doings and sayings stretching over a few millennia. Quoting well over 400 stories, skits and anecdotes from histories,...
