But what if he'd tried to tell Lear about sheepdogs? Indeed, did they even have sheepdogs in ye olde Albion? If not, how did they herd sheep? Certainly he ain't the one getting his eyes gouged. Who is the Fool? The fooled or the fooler? King Lear's Fool is insightful, in a sybilline kinda way. ('Though that means withholding rumours about the multi-species parentage of sheepdogs.) Nonetheless, I've often wondered about April Fools' Day. As it is also Palm Sunday, I will be abstaining from my hilarious repertoir of japes and criminal offences out of respect for Jesus. Given that His Maj is, in turn, a selfish and stupid git, ye wise Fool is begging to be embraced as the Shakespeherean mascot of all Anarchists and Anti-monarchists with Early Modern Thespian Tendencies. He's a clever piece of work, if ever there was one. The reason I mention King Lear, on this thirty-first day of March, is its Fool. I know there's a fine literary tradition of eye-gouging out there, what with Samson and Delilah, Odysseus and the Cyclops, but I prefer not to have to think about ruptured eyeballs in anything but the most abstract sense. And then there's all that business with the eyes. I'm put off right from the start by the fact that the daughters are all named after venereal diseases: Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, and what's her name. What's not: the Oedipus complex, Denmark, and jumping into other people's graves. What's hot: sibling rivalry, storm scenes, and existential angst. Boys with floppy hair and tight black jeans aren't soliloquising about suicide they're wondering what they'd do if they got their eyes poked out.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |