."..Self-proclaimed wits are usually not witty at all and it is this lack of self-knowledge that makes them fools," states Ben Knisley in his essay, "The Role of the Fool: Feste's Significance." If this is true, then the opposite must also be true: self-proclaimed fools are usually not foolish at all and it is their lack of self-knowledge that makes them witty. In Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night", Feste is a self-proclaimed fool who at first glance may appear to be an actual fool, a clown even, but upon looking deeper we discover that he is one of the most intelligent characters in the entire play. Feste shows us his intelligence through his many displays of knowledge and good decisions.

Feste may be labeled a fool, but if you were to compare his knowledge to that of anybody else's in the play, you'd think they were all the fools. One...