The Wisdom of Foolish Character: Exploring The Role of The Foolish In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and Stoppard's Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead

Abstract

In literature, the clown or the Fool is considered an attractive character that has frequently caught the interest of modern critics and audiences. The humour or the Laughter of the Clown is used as a form of social activism, as it historically serves as a mechanism for critique and transformation by exposing the undesirable realities of society at particular moments in time. Moreover, it has been recognized as a crucial element of human communication and expression, with Charles Darwin recognizing it as a foundational feature of social interaction preceding speech. From antiquity to the modern era, folly has been manifested in various forms, from ancient jesters to contemporary clowns. This paper examines how Shakespeare and Stoppard utilize humour to provoke social change, specifically centring on the role of black humour portrayed by the Fool in Twelfth Night and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Feste represents the artificial Fool in Twelfth Night, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern represent the natural Fool in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. These characters expose the meaninglessness of life, reject social norms, and highlight the limitation of man's thinking through their wit and ridicule actions in both Elizabethan and modern eras.meaningless