SOURCE: "Lear's Fool in King Lear," in The Stage Clown in Shakespeare's Theatre, Greenwood Press, 1996, pp. 123-35.

In the essay below, Videbœk explores the dimensions of the Fool's character and states that the Fool understands the "human condition" and pities the characters in the play who suffer under the harsh conditions of Lear's world. Furthermore, Videbœk contends that the function of Lear's Fool is extended further than that of the clowns in Shakespeare's other plays.

In Troilus and Cressida, Thersites' continuous exertions to create and maintain distance between house and stage through caustic commentary shows us a clown whose lack of compassion and empathy makes the comedy work. The audience needs this distance not to become distracted from the main points of the play. In King Lear, the Fool's biting jests result from the very opposite. Lear's Fool is a creature whose whole being is founded...