Read: 10 August, 2007
According to Billington, it had previously been assumed that the fool, disliked by the church, had been repressed in England while he had his public popularity in the continent. Billington argues that this assertion is not true and, rather, that those who kept records chose to omit references to the fool in a sort of protest through silence. As evidence, she uses brief references and images used in various works. From this Medieval beginning, she chronicles the changes the Fool underwent through the ages until its modern versions of the clown and the comedian.
Had my purposes been different, I might have enjoyed this book more. As it was, I merely skimmed all but the first chapter (the one that dealt with the Fool in Medieval England). I found it to be a perfectly good book; it simply did not address the questions I sought answers for.
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