Glossary; Or, a Rhetoric of Fooling
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Glossary; or, A Rhetoric of Fooling amphibology: “the ambiguous, or figure of sence incertaine” (Puttenham 1589). anatomy: a subject for minute dissection or analysis. Hence, to anatomize folly. aporia: “make doubt of things when by a plaine manner of speech wee might affirme or deny him” (Puttenham 1589). commedia dell’arte: Italian drama, often improvised, featuring stock characters such as Pantaloon and Harlequin. counterfeit: Pretended, disguised, feigned, false, sham; to imitate with intent to deceive. To make pretence, practice deceit; to represent, portray, depict. dulce et utile: Latin, meaning sweet and useful; referring to the purpose of art, to entertain and instruct. fain: To be delighted or glad, rejoice. To pretend kindness. feign: To fashion fictitiously or deceptively. To invent, to forge, to contrive. To allege falsely against. To make fictitious statements; to indulge in fiction. To disguise, dissemble, conceal, practice dissimulation. To make a show of, put on an appear- ance of, put on, pretend. flyting: To contend, strive; chide, wrangle; debate or dispute. Abusive speech. fol or folie: French for madness. foolosophy: A coinage by Sir Thomas Chaloner in his 1549 translation of Erasmus; used by Shakespeare in Timon of Athens: “my fooleosophers” (5.5.94). geck: A fool, simpleton; one who is tricked or derided, a dupe. gull: A credulous person; one easily imposed upon; a dupe, simpleton, fool. A trick, deception, fraud; a false report. A trickster, cheat, impostor (OED). handy-dandy: “A children’s game in which a small object is shaken between the hands by one of the players, and, the hands being suddenly closed, the other player is required to guess in which hand the object remains. With change of places; alternately, in rapid alternation. Offering a choice, or when it is indifferent which of two things is chosen” (OED). hendiadys: A figure of speech in which a single idea is expressed by two words con- nected by a conjunction. hobby-horse: Ridiculous antics, foolish obsession. hocos-pocos: “Trickster, conjurer, or juggler” (OED), supposedly satirizing the Catholic priest conducting mass: hoc est corpus. 140 ● Glossary misprision: Misunderstanding; a mistake. moon-calf: “A born fool; a congenital idiot; a simpleton”; “A deformed animal; a monster.” Also, a malformed fetus (OED). mountebank: Itinerant charlatan who sold supposed medicines and remedies. natural fool: A disturbed or deranged person, lunatic or insane. oxymoron: Self-contradicting term; combines oxus, “sharp,” and moros, “fool.” preposterous: Inverted in position or order. Unnatural, irrational, perverse, absurd. prestidigitation: Sleight of hand, legerdemain; conjuring. real names of artificial fools: Bubble, Baubel, Bob Bell, Patch, Sexton, Will Somer, Simplicity, Ambidexter, Richard Tarlton, Will Kemp, Merry Andrew, Jack Pudding, Changeling. sotie: Foolishness, folly. A species of broad satirical farce in early modern France. sot: Fool. OED cites Heywood’s Witty and Witless: “I would now rather be / Sage Solomon than sot Somer.” Zanna: The zany figure in commedia dell’arte. Notes 1 In Quest of Folly 1. All Shakespeare citations are from The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans et al. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974) and specified by parenthetical references to play, act, scene, and line numbers. This one is (TN 3.1.38–39). 2. James Joyce once agreed with a critic that he was trivial. “Also quadrivial,” he added. 3. For “Ruinous Folly” see Homer, The Iliad, tr. Robert Fitzgerald (Garden City, NY: Anchor, 1975), 460. Richmond Lattimore’s translation dubs this goddess “Delusion,” whereas Alexander Pope sticks with an anglicized “Ate.” Erasmus cites Até in Praise of Folly, ed. and tr. Clarence H. Miller (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1979), 26. 4. All biblical citations are from The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments, in the Common Version. With Amendments of the Language, ed. Noah Webster (New Haven, CT: Durrie and Peck, 1833). 5. All definitions in this book unless otherwise specified are from the Oxford English Dictionary. 6. A popular English translation of Erasmus illustrated by Hans Holbein appeared in 1515–16. Shakespeare very likely read the 1549 translation by Sir Thomas Chaloner. 7. The term hocos-pocos signified a trickster, conjurer, or juggler, supposedly sati- rizing the Catholic mass: hoc est corpus. 8. When the high-end call girl Christine Keeler was cross-examined by John Profumo’s lawyers, she was asked if she realized that the distinguished Secretary of State for War denied all charges of impropriety. She replied, “Well, he would, wouldn’t he?” 9. Though this sounds like good news for fools, Paul is neither an apostle of folly nor a member of folly’s party without knowing it. The key text for the student of folly is 1 Corinthians 1:20–28: “Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? ... Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weak- ness of God is stronger than men. ... But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the 142 ● Notes world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen.” In Paul’s revaluation, it is truly wise to ignore or reject the foolish things of this world. Paul’s reversal of meanings comes clear: “If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise” (1 Cor. 3:18). Of course, any fool or devil “can cite Scripture for his purpose” (MV 1.3.98). One such textual deviate is Moria, moving heaven and earth in Praise of Folly. 10. Thomas Chaloner, tr. and ed., The Praise of Folie, ed. Clarence H. Miller (London: Oxford University Press, 1965). Clarence Miller also did his own translation of Erasmus. Henceforth, unless otherwise specified, my quotations of Erasmus are from Praise of Folly, ed. and tr. Clarence H. Miller (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1979). 11. George Santayana, Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies, The Works of George Santayana, IX (New York: Scribner’s, 1937), 142. 12. Jonathan Bate stresses this point in his exceptional book The Genius of Shakespeare (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 307. Bate’s “Quantum Shakespeare” adumbrates the principles of complementarity and uncertainty in twentieth-century physics. Bate also notes that Keats’s “Negative capabil- ity,” an almost oxymoronic fusion of a negative and positive term, anticipates Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. 13. William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity (London: Chatto & Windus, 1930), 192. 14. In Merchant of Venice, the clown maintains “intimate contact” through direct address, as in the imperative, “Mark me now.” See David Wiles, Shakespeare’s Clown: Actor and Text in the Elizabethan Playhouse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 102. 2 This Great Stage of Fools 1. Archie Armstrong, an ornery little fool, despised the diminutive, prickly Arch- bishop Laud. Once at a banquet he offered grace: “give great praise to the Lord, and little Laud to the devil.” By this rather good pun, Laud was not amused. 2. Kemp’s title was thus proclaimed by Shakespeare’s contemporary Thomas Nash in 1590. Cited in Edward I. Berry, Shakespeare’s Comic Rites (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 110. 3. A “wafer” is an orb-shaped disk; a marotte is a stick often adorned with a replica of the jester’s head. Scholars disagree on whether an English fool would sport a marotte before 1611. Marottes were certainly deployed in sixteenth-century France, depicted in many medieval images, and mentioned in John Gower’s Confessio Amantis (ca. 1390) and John Skelton’s Magnyfycence (ca. 1515). 4. In Kemp’s book about his jigging exploit, Nine Days Wonder, he bids “Farewell Congruity”! 5. “Folly” turns up eighty times. In addition, of course, are scores of synonyms and cognates for fool and folly, such as jest, cozen, trick. See the glossary for examples and definitions. Notes ● 143 6. In Jocoserious Joyce: The Fate of Folly in Ulysses (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), I described a belle époque Parisian performer who could fart musical notes. In extending my research, I learn that this skill was hardly unique and harkens back at least to the early modern era. I am happy to correct my early misconception of musical effluvia. 7. Robert Payne, Charlie Chaplin (Orig. Title: The Great God Pan) (New York: Ace Books, 1952), 25–26. 8. “Jester” as defined by OED. 9. The “rude mechanicals” are, of course, workmen or artisans. Mechanical also means automatic, as in Henri Bergson’s conception of humor as a mechanical or inorganic encrustation upon the living, a default mode rather than a vital response. 10. In both Middle English and Russian, the word blessed is itself paradoxical. The English sely meant “blessed” and became the modern “silly.” Similarly in Russian, blazzhennyi signifies “blessed” as well as “silly, foolish.” 11. See Jan Kott, The Bottom Translation: Marlowe and Shakespeare and the Carnival Tradition, tr. Daniela Miedzyrzeka and Lillian Vallee (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1987). 12. Paul, 1 Corinthians 2:9. This is the Geneva translation known to Shakespeare. 13. Jonathan Bate notes this wonderful detail. See Bate, Soul of the Age: A Biography of the Mind of William Shakespeare (New York: Random House, 2009), 57. Emphasis mine. 14. As Edward Berry cogently remarks in Comic Rites, 136. 15. In the 1935 Reinhardt/Dieterle film Midsummer Night’s Dream, Mickey Rooney makes Puck a snorting, grunting Huck Finn; Moshinsky’s 1982 version produces a punk Puck baring fangs and sniffing bestially whenever humans approach. 16. Puck also traces his lineage to the tricky slave of Roman comedy and to Cupid, another unreliable marksman.