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Basochiens

Basochiens  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Performing arts, Theatre
Society of Parisian law clerks devoted to comic performance. In 1442 the Basochiens entered into a cooperative arrangement with the Confrérie de la Passion that continued to the end of ...
Christian Weise

Christian Weise  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature
(1642–1702),German dramatist, headmaster of a school at Zittau, where he wrote and produced a number of long plays which were purely academic. The chronicle plays and tragedies of his ...
clown

clown  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Performing arts, Theatre
In Elizabethan days a composite comic character, who might be a simpleton, a knave, or a Court Jester. Shakespeare provides examples of all three with Costard in Love's Labour's Lost ...
Court Fool

Court Fool  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Performing arts, Theatre
Member of the Royal Household, also known as the King's Jester, not to be confused with the humbler Fool of the folk festivals. His origin has been variously traced to ...
Do Dera

Do Dera  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Religion
The fool of Lugaid mac Con who put on the crown to impersonate him during the Battle of Cenn Abrat. Lugaid escaped, but Do Dera was killed by Eógan (3), of Munster.
English Comedians

English Comedians  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Performing arts, Theatre
Itinerant English theatre companies which toured Germany from the late sixteenth to early seventeenth centuries. In many ways similar to the commedia dell'arte troupes, the Englische Komödianten ...
ethnic jokes

ethnic jokes  

Reference type:
Overview Page
The English are not alone in having an active repertoire of jokes which rely for their point on negative ethnic stereotypes, as all European countries have their joke cycles about particular groups. ...
Feast of Fools

Feast of Fools  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Performing arts, Theatre
Generic name for the New Year revels in European cathedrals and collegiate churches, when the minor clergy usurped the functions of their superiors and burlesqued the services of the Church. ...
fool

fool   Quick reference

A Dictionary of the Bible (2 ed.)

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2010
Subject:
Religion
Length:
56 words

A fool was a person without a proper gift of intelligence (Luke 12: 20; Rom. 1: 21; Eph. 5: 15)

fool

fool   Reference library

The Companion to Theatre and Performance

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2010
Subject:
Performing arts, Theatre
Length:
189 words

A comic entertainer, sometimes physically deformed, whose behaviour is the product of real or pretended mental deficiency. An Egyptian record of about ...

Fool

Fool   Reference library

The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre (2 ed.)

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2003
Subject:
Performing arts, Theatre
Length:
178 words

licensed buffoon of the medieval Feast of Fools, later an important member of the sociétés joyeuses of medieval France, not to be confused with the ...

fool

fool   Reference library

Ronald W. Vince

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2005
Subject:
Performing arts, Theatre
Length:
187 words

A comic entertainer, sometimes physically deformed, whose behaviour is the product of real or pretended mental deficiency. An Egyptian record of about ...

fool

fool   Quick reference

A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2004
Subject:
Society and culture, Customs and Traditions, Social sciences, Regional and Area Studies
Length:
115 words

Courtly society in medieval Ireland, Scotland, and Wales included jesters, buffoons, and mimics for entertainment; as conventional figures in early

fool

fool   Quick reference

The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (2 ed.)

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2006
Subject:
Language reference, History of English, Literature, Literary theory and cultural studies
Length:
257 words

a fool and his money are soon parted proverbial saying, late 16th century.

a fool at forty is a fool indeed...

fools

fools   Reference library

The Oxford Dictionary of the Renaissance

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2005
Subject:
History, Early Modern History (1500 to 1700)
Length:
219 words
Had significant roles both in folk festivals and at court from early medieval times through to the sixteenth century. In the former, they were associated with ritual disruption of ... More
fools

fools   Quick reference

The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (2 ed.)

Reference type:
Subject Reference
Current Version:
2006
Subject:
Language reference, History of English, Literature, Literary theory and cultural studies
Length:
223 words

All Fools' Day a humorous term for 1 April as a day for testing the credulity of others; recorded from the early 18th century, and probably modelled on ...

Fortune

Fortune  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature, Literary studies (early and medieval)
Chance or luck as a power in human affairs, often personified (Fortune) as a goddess; the word comes (in Middle English, via Old French) from Latin Fortuna, the name of a goddess personifying luck or ...
freak show

freak show  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Performing arts, Theatre
Public exhibition of the extraordinary body for pleasure and profit. Since the medieval period, the ‘othered’ body has been displayed, particularly at carnival occasions such as London's Bartholomew ...
Gotham

Gotham  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature
Sobriquet of New York City, derived from the jocular reputation of the “wise men” of Gotham, England, noted for their foolish actions. The name was first so used in Irving's Salmagundi (1807–8).
Jakob Ayrer

Jakob Ayrer  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature
(1543–1605),early German dramatist, successor to Hans Sachs, and like him a prolific author of Fastnachtsspiele, of which about 60 were published in 1618. Ayrer, who spent most of his ...

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