COMEDY

COMIC IDENTITY 45identifiable roles of Pantalone, the old Venetian merchant; the Doctor, atiresome pedant; Harlequin, a quasi-independent servant, whosefamiliar patchwork costume originally signified poverty; and Brighella,a street bully and unrepentant liar who may have helped shapeBeaumarchais’s Figaro, adopted by Mozart and Rossini. Additionalcharacters developed, each with their own mask, who were to infiltrateand influence Western comic literature in various guises for centuries.These included Pedrolino who was remodelled in France as the sad andlonely Pierrot, and Pulcinella, who eventually became the jovial seasidewife-beater, Mr Punch. In the commedia, as well as all the comic formsthat utilize stereotypes, identity is destiny, and characters are doomed torepeat their actions and live forever at the mercy of their undiagnosedflaws.CLOWNS, FOOLS, AND FOLLYAlongside stereotypes, the predominant figure of comedy is the fool. Anhistorically complex and paradoxical character, claiming a variety ofoverlapping roles including clown, buffoon, jester, scapegoat, andclairvoyant, the fool recurs as a symbol of contradictions andquandaries. Often the fool is simply a low commoner possessed ofshrewd practical sense, as in the popular late medieval tales of the‘obscene and hairy’ hunchback Marcolf, who repeatedly proved himselfwiser than King Solomon in bouts of wit. Foolishness is not the same asidiocy, but rather an expression of the ambiguous, doubled, and invertedideas of wisdom and folly that existed in the medieval period. Folly,incorporated into several strong currents of theology, saw foolishness asthe overriding characteristic of humanity, revealing itself in all humanendeavour. Knowledge was a tainted and problematic concept, as theintolerable desire to know had led to the expulsion from Eden and thefall from grace. God therefore favoured the foolish and inviolableinnocents who could not be corrupted by their own ingenuity. Christhad appeared as a manifestation of this humility, presenting himself ‘asa mock-king, riding into Jerusalem on an ass, to be displayed in purple,beaten and laughed at…Christ and the fool as one in simplicity’(Jacobson, 1997:167). The ecclesiastical establishment of the MiddleAges incorporated some of these beliefs into their liturgical activities.Church festivals such as the festum stultorum (the ‘feast of fools’), thefatuorum papam (the ‘fool’s pope’), and the festum asinorum, a Frenchfeast celebrating Mary’s flight into Egypt, during which the priest andcongregation were required to bray like donkeys, emphasized the