Shadows of Yorick
Shadows of Yorick

Summary/Abstract: The article is centred on the figures of Richard Tarlton and his understudy, Robert Armin. It focuses on the social function of the fool in the Renaissance period and the liminality of the interchangeable social role of jesters and kings, as the jester becomes a carnivalesque king. The documentation sources are centred around Armin’s chronicle of the so to speak court fools of his times, Nest of Ninnies (1608) and Tarlton’s Jests (1611) filtered through Bakhtin’s motif of laughter as a conquering force against fear, and regeneration or rebirth through laughter. I intend to prove that Armin’s personal documentation combined with Tarlton’s legacy was crucial for the shaping of such deep characters as King Lear’s Fool, the Clowns from Hamlet, Touchstone from As You Like It and Feste from Twelfth Night. Also, the study will try to provide a full account of the carnival motifs of regeneration that can be find throughout Armin’s chronicle and Tarlton’s Jests, such as violence, sex, death and regeneration – as common features that link as a red thread the jests of fools depicted in these pages.

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