SOURCE: "Shakespeare's Fools: The Shadow and the Substance of Drama," in Shakespearian Comedy, Edward Arnold, 1972, pp. 142-59.

In the essay below, Evans observes developments in Shakespeare's dramatic representation of the fool character as they coincide with the appearance of Robert Armin as a member of Shakespeare's acting company.

I

In recent years increased attention has been paid by criticism to Shakespeare's Fools. This increase was, doubtless, fired by the excellently detailed and imaginatively presented work of Enid Welsford¹ which showed the vast antecedents of the character both in art forms and in real life, and suggested its importance to a full understanding of the nature of Shakespeare's imagination. Later, Robert Goldsmith² dealt shrewdly with the contradictory nature of the Fool—the contrapuntal effects of his drollery and sage comment. One of the most recent books takes the study a stage further. William Willeford³ discusses, in both philosophical and...