Introduction. Unearthing Yoricks : literary archeology and the ideologies of early English clowning -- Folly as proto-racism : blackface in the "natural" fool tradition -- "Sports and follies against the Pope" : Tudor evangelical lords of misrule -- "Verie devout asses" : ignorant Puritan clowns -- The fool "by art" : the all-licensed "artificial" fool in the King Lear quarto -- Epilogue. License revoked : ending an era
Summary
From the late-medieval period through to the seventeenth century, English theatrical clowns carried a weighty cultural significance, only to have it stripped from them, sometimes violently, by the close of the Renaissance when the famed l̀€icense' of fooli
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 205-222) and index
