FESTE THE JESTER: AN OVERVIEW OF AN WISE FOOL'S CHARACTER | TWELFTH NIGHT

Playing the fool: Feste and Twelfth Night

Fool in the Twelfth Night

In the grace and subtlety of its design, TWELFTH NIGHT is the crowning perfection of the sequence of comedies belonging to the first half of Shakespeare's career. It sustains the celebration of triumphant love that characterizes its predecessors, yet it is distinguished by a troubling undertone that suggests the playwrights need to deal with the deeper realm of the human psyche. The interpretation of 'Twelfth Night' and 'Illyria' - not only as seasonal and geographical settings but also as dominant symbolic time and space ‒ creates an all-important frame for the understanding of the overall action. The play, in its eloquence of wit, harmony and feeling, in its creation of a world of make-believe and revelry, and in its mobility of tone and mood, belongs essentially to the theatre. And the character who becomes most instrumental in enhancing all these with his wisdom is Feste.

          In the land of folly, only the fool (Feste) is exempt from the global state of illusion, for his knowledge is that Socratic wisdom inscribed over the shrine of the Delphic Oracle in ancient Greece: "know yourself, know that you know nothing". Outside the coils of the lovers' conclusion, the coldly piercing light of the fool's insight sees straight through the facades of his fellow characters to their hidden calculations and to their delusions and irrational sources of behaviour. Like a mirror, Feste's wit acts to please and displease the play's Narcissists dreamily intent upon viewing their own reflections. As a jester or professional fool in the household of Olivia, Feste has served as commentator and chorus, mocking the extravagance of Orsino, the wasteful idealism of Olivia's grief, Viola's poor showing as a man and taking part in the revelry of Sir Toby and Sir Andrew. Shakespeare used court-fools with liberty; in fact, the institution of having jesters at the court was still a reality in his time. The Fool in KING LEAR is born-idiot with a natural knock for jesting, "nature's natural". But comedy is more intellectual than tragedy, and so Touchstone and Feste are made professional entertainers who could be kept in the court to play the part of a licensed fool. Professionally funny and gifted with intelligence "the clown" [Feste] is still a man with a ready tongue, a fertile wit and 'an intellectual agility greater than it requires' (Bradley). And the real life of the jester is also a precarious one which is akin to that of Feste who frequents in the court of both Duke Orsino and Olivia.

          We meet Feste for the first time in act 1 scene 5 and at once he reveals Maria's secret. He is threatened with hanging for playing the truant. But "many a good hanging" he replies, "prevent a bad marriage" which reminds us of sir Toby and Maria's relationship. Then, for his disobedience and his failure to please Olivia, she remarks, "go to, y'are a dry fool: I'll no more of you". But at once with his cool reasoning, he has enchanted Olivia by disapproving the excessive mourning for her brother, "The more fool Madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul being in heaven...". He has no Celia, no countess, no Lear to protect or love him. Therefore, he has to face his arch-rival Malvolio who accuses him by telling Olivia, "I marvel your ladyship takes delight in such a barren rascal" and "unless you laugh..., he is gagged". And yet he anticipates the 'dark room' scene in act 4 scene 2, where the disguised Feste will "look to" the "mad" Malvolio. He says: "He is but mad yet, madonna, and the fool shall look to the madman". The Duke comes next, and, as his manner ruffles Feste, the mirror of truth is held firmly before him too: "Now, the melancholy god protect thee; and the tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal". Actually, he satirizes the Duke's inconstancy by comparing him first with a valuable cloth and then with a prized gem. In fact, there is a tradition of 'folly' that parallels the ancient 'vanity' tradition with its root. Feste is thus a 'memento morial' (reminder of folly), really a comic version of the 'memento mori', a levelling device which reduces the social hierarchy to a common dumb founding equality. As a philosopher, he may make unpalatable comments, but he escapes punishment through the invulnerability of his professional role. Thus Feste may speak to Sebastian of his "this great lubber the world". And at last, he tells Viola as Cesario like a philosopher how "foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun - it shines everywhere" and "I think I saw your wisdom". Nobody heeds him and why should anyone heed a man who gets his living by talking nonsense. He speaks as he likes; but from first to last, whether he is revelling or chopping logic or playing with words, and to whomsoever he speaks or sings, he keeps his tongue free from obscenity.

          The clown's personal name is derived from Latin 'Festus' meaning revel, fitting merely a jocund company in the play's progress. The name may be chosen to suggest his role in the revelries within Olivia's household, or perhaps in Elizabethan pronunciation it rhymed with 'jester'. But here Feste's role is not ended. In act 4 scene 2 Feste dresses up as a 'priest' and assumes the name, Sir Topas. In literary and theatrical history, this is the name not of a priest but a knight: the protagonist in Chaucer's burlesque romance 'The Tale of Sir Thopas' in Canterbury Tales and then a braggart knight, Sir Tophas, in Lyly's Endimion. Both characters act out what is in some ways a false role, like Feste's in act 4 scene 2. The name, as well as the clerical disguise, may allude to the 'exorcizing' of Malvolio, since according to Scot the topaz stone had a therapeutic effect in the treatment of madness. And at last Feste convinced Olivia and is successful to free Malvolio from prison.

          "We never laugh at Feste" (Bradley). Twelfth Night comes at the end of Shakespeare's happy comedies, and already a sharp nipping air has started blowing from the tragedies. This makes Feste's role so delicate. He has a greater need to defend himself against a world which is basically more hostile. That is why Feste has to use his foolery to squeeze money out of the people - he is the wit-pedlar selling his wit to prospective customers. He begs in an amusing way. With Duke Orsino, he keeps to the money question so determinedly that he is dismissed when he comes for the third time "you can fool no more money out of me at this throw".

          In the course of the play Feste also answers all the questions raised against him and also his own capacity. First, in act 1 scene 5 he compares himself to Sir Andrew and says, "Better a witty fool than a foolish wit", pointing out both Sir Andrew's limitations and his own role. In the same scene, he says, "I wear not motley in my brain" i.e. he is a fool by profession, not by nature. And in the last appearance, he describes his own, Viola and Duke Orsino's quality by saying, "'Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrown upon them.'" and again directly describes his own state, "'By the Lord, fool, I am not a mad'". Not only that he also takes revenge against the steward in act 5 scene 1 by saying "remember, 'Madam, why laugh you at such a barren rascal, an you smile not, he's gagged'?", reminding the audience of Malvolio's speech in act 1 scene 5.

          Twelfth Night is full of "many sorts of music". It is only Shakespeare play opens with instrumental music and ends with a song. And almost all the music and the praise of music comes from Feste or has to do with Feste. The Fool's voice is as melodious as the 'sweet content' of his soul. To think of him is to remember "O mistress mine", "Come away, come away, death" and the "When I was and a little tiny boy", and fragments of folk-song and ballad. Each and every song has a sense of a time-governed world in which wish-for things do not happen. If the play's songs come, can Robert Armin be far behind? He was a great stage-fool and singer who can sing in "both high and low" scales. Since Armin appears (1599) to have been a court-tenor, moreover, his high-pitched voice was an appropriate substitute for the unbroken voice of the boy actor who playing the role of Viola. The last song of Feste may be an adapted version of "He that has a little tiny wit" in King Lear by Armin himself.