Shakespeare's Great Stage of Fools

Cover......Page 1
Half title......Page 2
Also by......Page 3
Title......Page 4
Copyright......Page 5
Dedication......Page 6
Contents......Page 8
Acknowledgments......Page 10
1 In Quest of Folly......Page 14
2 This Great Stage of Fools......Page 22
Bless’d Bully Bottom......Page 25
Prepost’rous Puck......Page 29
Condemned into Everlasting Redemption......Page 33
Natural Philosopher, Material Fool......Page 34
Nothing That Is So Is So......Page 39
Holy Reasons and Superfluous Folly......Page 41
3 The History of Folly in the Henriad......Page 46
Foolosopher King......Page 48
Madcap Prince of Wales......Page 56
The King’s Farced Title......Page 59
4 Fools for Love: Fooling and Feeling......Page 62
The Career of Humor: Much Ado, Mirth, and Matter......Page 64
Faining and Feigning in As You Like It......Page 76
Counterfeit, I Assure You......Page 82
Whirligig of Foolery in Twelfth Night......Page 85
I Swear I Am Not That I Play......Page 90
5 Folly Is Anatomiz’d......Page 92
Pox of Such Antic......Page 93
O That I Were a Fool!......Page 98
Geck and Gull, Fool and Knave......Page 101
Thersites’s Curses......Page 105
6 There the Antic Sits......Page 114
Fortune’s Fool......Page 115
Antic Disposition......Page 116
Thus Credulous Fools Are Caught......Page 123
Lear’s Shadow......Page 127
7 No Epilogue, I Pray You......Page 138
The Folly of This Island......Page 142
Motley to the View......Page 151
Glossary; or, A Rhetoric of Fooling......Page 152
Notes......Page 154
Bibliography......Page 174
Index......Page 192