SOURCE: "The Fool's Mirror in King Lear," in English Literary Renaissance, Vol. 21, No. 1, Winter, 1991, pp. 75-86.

In the following essay, Shickman maintains that Lear's Fool was most likely intended to carry a mirror on stage in order to reinforce such concepts as "folly, prudence, and self-knowledge," with which the play is concerned.

At the height of the storm in which King Lear finds himself drenched and humiliated, and during which he begins to learn of mortal limitation and human responsibility, the faithful Fool labors to outjest his heartstruck injuries. Soaked to the skin himself, he urges Lear to recant and beg of his daughters the blessing that children would ordinarily be expected to ask of their fathers: "in, ask thy daughters blessing. Here's a night pities neither wise men nor fools" (3.2.12-13).¹ He versifies on the value of a roof over one's head, and then utters a problematic...