Lori M Culwell:  "The Role of the Clown in Shakespeare's Theatre"

I. Introduction
	
During the Renaissance, dramatic forms were subject to a variety of changes.
As audiences changed in composition and education, the theatre necessarily
changed as well.  The Renaissance began at different times in different areas
of Europe, and was a slow process rather than a sudden ideological shift.
Though the change was to be dramatic, the past could never be entirely
forgotten.  In London, the people had the task of incorporating completely new
schools of thought, as well as people from all over Europe, into their culture.
 The question stands:  what happens to a cultural symbol (i.e., the theatre)
when an ideological shift, however gradual, occurs?  Moreover, how was the
drama of the previous century integrated into the new, more sophisticated drama
that followed the hundred-or-so years of significant change and its effects on
England? What follows is an attempt to approach an answer to these questions
through an exploration of physicality and clowning in the early modern period.
	
Beginning with the liturgical drama in medieval ("pre-modern") England, a
tradition of physicality was developed that was to be built on in conjunction
with an emergent audience structure, influenced by the steady process of
change.  While the clown in the pre-modern drama functioned purely as a
physical, comic tool to re-enforce the ideas of the church, the new clown would
incorporate the physical appeal of his ancestors while growing into a cultural
symbol---a repository for shared significance that would play on medieval humor
for the benefit of everyone in the audience.  An especially clear example of
this occurrence can be found in Shakespeare's plays, where the clown clearly
responds to the diversity of the audience (and culture) of his time,
incorporating familiar physicality while moving a step further with colloquial
references, political commentary, and social critiques.  The role of the clown
became increasingly important in this drama; the cultural "shift" produced such
a multiplicity of Renaissance individuals that it took more than the standard
tragedy, comedy, or ritual physical figure to satisfy them.  Indeed, this was
an audience of people who were affected by as well as influential on the drama
of their time, as we will see through the study of the clown.

II.  Pre-Modern Drama:  Ritual and Tradition (c. 1300-1450)
	
In the drama of the pre-modern era, the ritualism of physicality appears as a
dominant, prevalent theme on which the works are dependent for survival.
Repeatedly in the Mummers Plays, The Plays of the Sacrament, and even in the
later work Mankind, ritualistic clowning is an important performative device.
The words of the fools are often identical:  never belonging simply to one
play, but floating in the non-representational performance space that the clown
is known to occupy in the liturgical ceremony of the pre-modern theatre
(Weimann).
	
As the term "pre-modern" implies, the theatre was based largely upon the ritual
and ceremony of religion and had as its topics problems which only related to
the production of a larger cosmic harmony.  As there was no true sense of
individuation, one function of the church was to teach the illiterate masses
the proper template for a living a good life. The clowns served to provide a
comic model for making sense of the world that all agreed could be figured out
by no man.  These dramas had predominantly Biblical themes, and were intended
solely to instruct the people in religious matters, as a supplement to the
sermons of the Catholic priests.  Says Oscar Brockett in The History of
Theatre:

		Symbolic actions and objects--church vestments,
		altars, censers, and the pantomime of the priests---	
		constantly recalled the events which Christian ritual
		celebrates.
									
						(Brockett, 87)

Pre-modern plays, then, served to dramatize the events and re- emphasize the
Christian themes presented by the priests.  As symbolic figures, these clowns
were important as well:  in the Non Cycle Plays and Fragments, the Pagan figure
has its arms torn off for grabbing the loaf of Sacrament Bread.  His arms are
soon after reattached by the grotesque personification of a doctor, and the
Pagan is converted to Christianity. In this case, the very nature of the drama
is one of grotesque and over-exploited physicality, including broad, lewd
gestures and simple, coarse language and using violence, profanity, and
overindulgence. All of these properties are associated with evil, and are
wildly humorous when taken to the extreme.  The clown figure in this drama
embodies the crude qualities of pre-modern man---identifiably hedonistic
qualities which make the clown figure so appealing to this day.  The function
of this mimetic presentation was to reinforce universal truths already present
in thought, and to insist that everything was part of the larger whole, the
working order of the universe.  In this example, it is only through the
non-sensical style of the clown that these truths begin to make sense.
	
Accordingly, the non-representational acting space occupied by the pre-modern
clowns provides the necessary closeness and audience rapport essential to
clowning itself and is important to emphasize the didactic intention of the
work.  The clown in the pre-modern drama occupies the "locus" (Weimann), making
himself one of the people by appearing in their space:  "here shall a messenger
come into the place, renning and crying Tidingys, tidingys..."  (Passion Play,
523).  Later the clown will continue to occupy the "platea" space in an "aside"
position, where he is distanced from the main action and maintains audience
rapport by offering commentary on the drama in the language of the common folk.
Says Sylvia Feldman of this phenomenon:  "the didactic function of these
moralities is so important that...a statement of didactic intention frames the
action" (Feldman, 43). This use of space can be observed  in the Doctor in
Abraham and Isaac, who breaks away from the main action of the play to address
the audience directly:

		Doctor:  Lo, sovereigns and sirs. now we have
		 showed this solemn story to great and small...
  		 showeth you here how we should keep, to our
		 power, God's commandments without grudging...

					(Abraham and Isaac, 435-440)

This convention was effectively used to make the audience members learn from
the religious presentation and apply the principles to their own lives.
	
Often the clowns were horrible and terrifying, shocking the people by urinating
on stage and performing ritual acts of physical violence, completely steeped in
the physicality that was their existence.  The pre-modern clown made no attempt
to interpret or to motivate the action by which he was defined.  This clown is
not a character, but functions as an institution of corporeality.  This pure
corporeality is based on a long-standing popular tradition deeply rooted in
culture:  that of singing, dancing, drinking, and overblown physicality (often
blatant violence).  His words need no consideration of originality, evidenced
by the many repetitions of the phrase "Here comes I that never come yit, with
my big head and my little wit...(Brody, 139)" by quite a few clowns of this
era.  These words need not correspond logically to any other figure in the
play, as his presence is non- representational and therefore non-reactional to
any represented reality.  For example:

		Mercy:  Avoide, goode brother!  Ye ben culpable
		        To interrupt my talking delectable.

		Mischeff:  Sere,  I have nother horse nor saddle,
		           Therefor I may not ride.

									
					(Mankind, 905)

This "conversation" between the two is hardly modern or logical discourse.
Mischeff simply does not play by the rules of dialogue, subsequently exiting
the "conversation" in favor of watching the unspoiled Mercy being taunted by
the "three rowdies".
	
The corralling of the chaos presented by this clownish corporeality is
furthermore a necessary part of the theme of the pre-modern drama:  that of
containing the confusion presented by the universe and unifying it into the
necessary "whole".  This implies that the religious paradigms mocked by
Mischeff can be so mimicked because the figure presents this "critique" only
for the sake of a good time, to tie the sermon to the real life of the observer
through familiarity.  This "game for the sake of gaming" was a means of
including the totality of the audience in that which they could not read and
only partially understand (Weimann).  It was, says Huxley in The Anthropology
of Performance, "a transformative process in the sense of transforming
personal/ social life crises into occasions where values representing the
unity/ community of total groups are celebrated".
	
III.  The Renaissance and "Cultural Mingle-Mangle"
	
Soon, the "unity of total groups" was to be far from enough to satisfy the
audience which was emerging.  The "universal truths" of the pre-modern age were
to be left behind in response to a number of events collectively known as The
Renaissance--a rebirth of learning, knowledge, and thought.  In the hundred
years from mid-fifteenth to mid-sixteenth century in England, many cultural and
sociological changes were taking place which would permanently change the
European society and, on a smaller scale, the English theatre.
	
Beginning near the time of the invention of the printing press (1453), the
spread of literacy, once reserved for clerics and scholars, was occurring.
Though Shakespeare's audiences in the early 1600's still contained an
illiterate contingency, this was a drastic leap from the nearly universal
illiteracy which had predominated merely a century before.  For the first time,
middle to upper-class people had the opportunity to read. The effect of this
Humanism in England was best expressed by Erasmus, whose publications "aspired
to unite the classical ideas of humanity with the Christian ideals of love and
piety (Kagan, 369)."  The influence of Italian Humanism encouraged them to
study the Greek and Latin classics and to form opinions of their own, away from
the teachings of the church, and to express them freely.
		
This subtly different approach to religion, which deals with integrating the
Bible's teachings into life as an individual, is thought to have paved the way
for the spread of the Reformation in England.  The Reformation, a gigantic
Catholic Church reform started by Martin Luther in 1517, was intended to put
man more in touch with a God that had been previously reserved for the Church.
In Luther's opinion:  "God's righteousness was not active and punishing, but
passive and transforming (Kagan, 390)."  This ideology supported the individual
and his personal growth through faith in God---quite distinct from the
universal truths and blind submission of Catholicism.  England struggled with
religious unity for centuries following this upheaval, only being politically
and religiously reconciled for a brief period during the reign of Elizabeth I (
1558-1603).  Elizabeth was a ruler who acquired and maintained her success by
remaining neutral in this shaky, religiously divided world.
	
Another affecting element of the Renaissance was the series of "Voyages of
Discovery", which greatly expanded collective knowledge of geography and
cultural diversity.  These voyages were made famous by explorers such as Sir
Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, and Christopher Columbus, who made fantastic
discoveries of previously uncharted lands. These discoveries would help re-open
the trade routes of Europe and slowly transfer commercial supremacy from the
Mediterranean to the Atlantic coast.  Europe was flourishing on many levels in
this age of discovery----intellectual, geographic, and commercial.  These
voyages included travel to South America, Africa, and India;  Spain and
Portugal being most aggressive in the pursuit of land acquisition.  The influx
of gold, spices, and silver soon stimulated trade, filling London and other
major cities with a number of people from varied heritages. From this time on:
"foreign tourists visited the theatre often, since they were counted on as one
of the famous sights of London (Gurr, 217)."
	
Thus, the world was no longer limited to the confines of England or the
Catholic Church--this exciting hundred years was forever to alter the
liturgical dramas prevalent in the years directly preceding it. The
intellectual, religious, and geographic changes occurring in England, when
considered together as an effecting force, provided the impetus as well as the
constant stimulus for the development of some of the most sophisticated dramas
yet to be seen.  With the spread of heightened conventional knowledge, the
English drama was an effective alembic for the dynamic change taking place. Of
great importance was the role of the clown in this drama, where the ritual
physical qualities of its predecessors were retained and put to use in the
forms of contestation and variance of viewpoint.
	
The rapid cultural intermingling and change of the Renaissance is expressed
most effectively by John Lyly's Prologue to Midas, in which he apologizes for
the heterogeneous nature of the drama, stating that: "...Trafficke and travell
hath woven the nature of all nations into ours...the whole world hath become an
Hodge Podge..." (Lyly, Midas). "Trafficke and travell" being the aforementioned
trade and endeavor that characterizes the Renaissance; voyages of geographic
and intellectual discovery, the expansion of trade routes and the new Humanism
which served as the stimuli for the emergence of an audience that would not be
satisfied with the traditional pre- modern drama. As Lyly perceived, the change
necessitated a new form of drama:  the tragi-comedy.  As Polonius observes upon
the arrival of the itinerant players in Hamlet, the actors are well prepared to
suit th, Hamlet, II,ii,392-397)
	
		the best actors in the world, either for tragedy,
		comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical,
		historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-
		historical-comical-pastoral, scene individable...
					(Polonius, Hamlet, II,ii,392-397)
	
Shakespeare's plays, following Lyly's revelatory Prologue, reflect the changing
and evolving nature of his audience, including as well a figure which picks up
where the pre-modern clown figure left off while evolving with the time:  in
short, an "early modern" drama was evolving.

IV.  Cultural Change and "Self " Development
	
By Shakespeare's time, the audience consisted of such a large number of mutable
individuals that  a more sophisticated form of theatre was needed to
accommodate them.  Shakespeare was clearly aware of this need:

		In the Renaissance, the potential of the individual
		was beginning to be recognized, as Shakespeare's
		interest in and respect for psychology reflects.
									
						(Boyce, 137)	

In his work Renaissance Self Fashioning, Stephen Greenblatt addresses not only
the emergence of man as a free individual in society, but also the primary tool
used to shape this individual:  rhetoric.  "[Rhetoric mediated] between the
past and the present...it offered men the power to shape their worlds...with an
eye to the audience and effect (162).  In consideration of the symbolic
interaction between a society and its cultural objects, it follows that while
this rhetoric theatricalized culture, it also "culturalized" the theatre.  A
more advanced form of one specific cultural object, the clown, was clearly in
order to reflect the use of this introspective rhetoric and its results.  This
revised clown used exegesis rather than strictly practicing mimesis, thus
integrating and mirroring the evolution of the self in the Renaissance.

V.  The City Clown:  A Transition
	
"Clowning" as an art form or distinguishable sport was probably best
personified in the years directly preceding Shakespeare's works by the famous
clown Dick Tarlton.  Tarlton's universal appeal was due largely to the "rural
and cultural unity of the time"  (Weimann, 186).  Tarlton was "the favorite of
laborer, city-burgher, and Queen alike" (Weimann, 186).  Tarlton was so famous
in London that during his lifetime he was named "Queen Elizabeth's first
jester" (Wiles, 23).  He became increasingly well known for his jests (which
were published posthumously), his jigs, and for his universal appeal:

		His comedy cut across barriers of class, proving
		acceptable both at court and in the tavern, because
		most people could accept the proposition that
		beneath every human exterior there lurks a coarse
		anarchistic peasant.
									
						(Wiles, 23)
 	
"Clowning", and the use of the oral and physical tradition by the clown, is not
only a response to the cultural intermingling, but from the need therein for a
unifying figure.  This clown fit into the "Hodge Podge" that the audience had
become by sampling from it.  Building on the physical tradition, he became a
patchwork of convention:  topical reference, Shakespearean prose, and physical
humor.  The "mingle mangle", the "trafficke and travell" described by Lyly
indicates an undeniable change in culture that mandates a figure such as
Tarlton or, later, the Gravediggers of Hamlet.  They epitomized diversity of
the "now"--an important element in the Elizabethan drama.  Robert Greene of the
University Wits, a group of Londoners far more educated than Shakespeare and
frustrated by his success, directly chastised Shakespeare in the pamphlet
"Greene's Groats Worth of Wit..."  for being a "Johannes fac Totum" (Jack of
all trades) when, in actuality, Shakespeare (and his clowns) could not have
been anything but.
	
The early modern city clown, then, picks up where the pre-modern clown left
off, as a liminal figure in a now-representational drama.  This is the
liminality Victor Turner describes in the Anthropology of Performance, where
liminality is the blurred line between the worlds of ritual and "represented"
performance.  This clown, who is more sophisticated than his predecessor, still
retains many of the qualities of, for example, the Vice figure in Mankind.  The
early modern clown in the drama continues to occupy the non- representational
performance space of the platea, creating the distance from the stage and
audience rapport that is again essential to the art of clowning.  The clowning
scene was one which pleased the groundling contingency of the audience while
being favorably observed by members of the upper class in the same audience
(Gurr, 86).  The theatre was a major unifying force in this new English
society.  For the first time:

		people from the whole social gamut...attended plays
		...citizens and artisans joined with gentlemen and
		prostitutes, porters and household servants, gallants,
		lawyers, and soldiers on leave.
									
						(Gurr, 217)	
		
The clowning scenes used in Hamlet and Macbeth are some of the finest examples
of the incorporation of the city clown and its ramifications.  The functions of
these scenes is, then, to provide an alternate viewpoint by interrupting the
main action of the play and playing specifically to that "mingle mangle". The
clowns used the oral/ physical tradition to create diversity and to provide a
more complete understanding of the theme by employing a "mingle mangle" of
their own. This popular technique was to spread into the Shakespearean play,
where it would undoubtedly be accepted by the audience as a whole, just as
Tarlton had been accepted by the full class spectrum of England.  This method
of enhanced understanding and entertainment in the theater through the
"buffoonery of clowning"  (Lowers, 89) was certainly a wonderful development of
Shakespeare's time.  Joseph Hall's Virgidemarium acknowledges the presence of
this heterogeneity, stating "...a goodly hotch-potch!  when...vile russetings
are matched with monarchs..."  and of the success of this phenomena:  "comes
leaping a self- misformed lout [into the Prince's place] then doth the theatre
echo all aloud...." Hall's statements (1597) were both insightful and
foreshadowing:  for not only did the clowning scene sit well with the entirety
of the crowd, its importance grew as Shakespeare used the clown as a tool for
the shift in focus necessary to convey more effectively the theme of the
dramas.  These scenes can also be viewed in The Two Gentlemen of Verona in the
character of Launce, and in As You Like It, the famous clown Touchstone.
	
The use of these universal, identifiable figures provides a shift in focus from
the subject matter of the play.  By using recognizable references from
contemporary times, the clown can, through the use of the oral tradition, make
the audience understand the theme being played out by the court- dominated
characters in the play.  The clown at this point utilizes what M.M. Bakhtin
calls "heteroglossia":  another's speech in another's language--- engaging not
only in his own intention ( i.e. digging a grave), but in the "refracted
intention of the author" (i.e. critiquing the Reformation in England) (Bakhtin,
324).  The clown uses colloquial speech; playing to the common man with the
permission of the nobility---for laughter is a powerful tool, and everyone
loves a clown. This alternate viewpoint is helpful when combined with the
remainder of the thematic content of the play, for it solidifies the ideas
present by reiterating them through the eyes of a distanced (if not
disinterested) third party.  The synthesis of all perspectives used ends in a
greater comprehension of the play as a whole.

VI.  Shakespeare's Clowns:  Two Examples
 	
One clear example of these elements can be observed in Act V, scene i of
Shakespeare's Hamlet, known as the Gravedigger's scene, where Shakespeare
identifies the two men who dig the grave of Ophelia as Clown One and Clown Two,
giving them as well the physical humor associated with the clowning rituals of
the pre-modern.  These two "clowns" open the scene by throwing skulls up out of
a grave and singing a little song;  extremely humorous in light of the
pervasive seriousness of the play until this point.  The clowns likely received
what would today be labeled obvious or gratuitous laughter; this lightness
seems appropriately placed to contrast the forebodingly "heady" nature of the
first four acts of this play.  The topical, cultural themes are introduced
immediately by the gravediggers: these men are by no means royalty.  They speak
in the informal and make references that clearly have nothing to do with
Elsinore, or even Denmark. The First Clown is digging the grave of Ophelia, who
is to be buried in Denmark (if one is "playing along" with the
representationality of the drama).  And yet this clown calls out to his
counterpart to:  "go, get thee to Yaughan, fetch me a stoup of liquor"  (V, i,
18-19), simultaneously breaking the represented reality of the drama and
creating an audience rapport through the humor implicit in his statement.  As
the playgoing audience would certainly have recognized, Yaughan was a pub
around the corner from the London Playhouse where Hamlet was playing (Weimann).
 This likely warranted as much raucous laughter as did: "...[insanity] will not
be seen in [Hamlet] there [in England]; there the men are as mad as he" (V, i,
18-19).  The importance of these references is twofold:  they give the audience
a much-needed laugh, and provide the proper distance from Elsinore to view what
the clowns say as discreet parallels, not direct commentaries: the clowns,
though they speak with Hamlet, are assuredly not his contemporaries.  The
subsequent incongruities of intellectual argument are the real meat of the
scene--the "seriousness through buffoonery" for which these scenes are famous.
The clowns begin to engage in what appears to be a serious, philosophical
discussion but which ends in hilarity, even going so far as to mock the
classical Latin and Aristotelian studies of the Italian- influenced Humanists.
The first clown, when speaking on the nature of Ophelia's death, describes it
as "in self defense," then proceeds to misquote the Latin in labeling it "se
offendendo" (self offense), then changing the word "ergo"  into "argal".  These
references would certainly have been recognized by the Shakespearean
audience---if only the parts of the audience that had studied Latin.  The
clowns also delve into complex Aristotelian logic, saying that "...if I drown
myself wittingly it argues an act, and an act hath three branches:  it is, to
act, to do, to perform..." (V, i, 10-11).  Clearly the argument is incongruous
and wholly inapplicable to the situation at hand; he really has no point.  But
the comic element lies in the confidence with which both parties continue the
conversation, delving into a religious discussion which, given the
circumstances of the Reformation and the unresolved religious dissention in
England at the time, was likely to have been a hot topic.  The clowns take a
Protestant viewpoint, discussing whether Ophelia is to have a Christian burial,
going so far as compare themselves to Adam to prove that they are indeed
gentlemen capable of such a discourse and decision:

		First Clown:  There is no ancient gentlemen...
       			      but ditchers and gravediggers:  they	
			      hold up Adam's profession.

		Second Clown:  Was he a gentlemen"
		First Clown:  ...what, art a heathen?...the Scripture
				says Adam digged...

That the clowns discuss the Scriptures on stage during a time of heated
religious tension is a brilliant theatrical choice on Shakespeare's part. Who
better to discuss the most serious topics than those characters who appear to
be complete idiots?  The threat of blasphemy, disrespect, or other negative
connotation decrease.  Macbeth thinks he might actually be insane and says that
he has murdered sleep.  This scene is necessary to maintain the thematic focus:
 to equate Macbeth's sins to the sins of the London townspeople both distanced
the audience from the main traumatic action of the play and made them think
about it on their own terms.  Once again, the synthesis of these diversified
parts leads to a greater understanding of the play as a whole.  This scene is
another example of Bakhtin's heteroglossia:  while the Porter's discourse is
with MacDuff and Lennox, Shakespeare's "refracted intention" (Bakhtin, 324) is
to refer to the Gunpowder Plot in order to bring the tragedy of Macbeth down to
a realistic level.
	
Placement of the clowning scenes is extremely important:  the appearance of the
clowning scene usually occurs just as the shock or trauma level of the play has
reached a point when the minds of the audience members begin to become
desensitized.  The clowning scenes "give spectators a chance to catch their
breath and mentally prepare themselves for what follows" (Epstein, 306).  These
scenes provide a break from the murder, treachery, and death of the plays while
still remaining focused on the central themes of the play.  They give the
audience a "breather" of sorts, and allowing the necessary time to process the
copious, complicated information just presented.
	
Both Hamlet and Macbeth are set in countries other than England, yet in both
plays the audience is temporarily returned to England, if only for "a stoup of
liquor" or to consider the "tailor's hose".  Each time the play leaves the main
action, the audience returns better able to grasp the entirety of the theme and
to synthesize the alternate viewpoints into one cogent, unified theme.  The
clowning scenes in these plays are excellent examples of the alternate
perspective caused by distance.  These scenes support Lyly's theory of the
"mingle mangle" that was the composition of the Elizabethan audience:  this
diversity is reflected in everything from the dramatic structure to the
discourse and is prevalent in the clowning scenes.  Indeed a mingle mangle of
dramatic conventions are used in these plays.  All, however, yield the same
conclusions as to the function of the clowning scene.  Primarily,
identification is extremely important to the understanding of the fundamental
scenes of the play.  What cannot be understood when expressed by the Prince of
Denmark makes logical sense when simply outlined by the gravedigger and put
into contemporary terms, as transcription into a different idiom facilitates
understanding and comprehension.  The clowning scenes, through the use of
cultural topicality, interrupt the main action of the play to provide diversity
of perspective, or alternate viewpoint.  This necessary shift of focus allows
the audience to stay focused on the main theme of the play, and must be placed
at some time before desensitization of the audience occurs, hence the timing of
placement is also critical. The audience of Shakespeare's time had indeed
become a "Hodge Podge":  the sophisticated drama that Shakespeare's Hodge-Podge
audience were witnessing had evolved from their own social mobility and
advancement: it was through the Clown that it both spoke and understood.

V.  The Clown as a Cultural Object:  Shared Significance Embodied

In her book Renaissance Revivals, Wendy Griswold studies the history of
revivals in an attempt to understand the ongoing, mutually influential
relationship between a society and its cultural products (Griswold, 5).  The
theatre is an effective convention through which we can view this
relationship--that the theater and its symbolic figures shift along with
society and reflect as well as influence it is readily apparent, as we have
seen.  The clown in this period is usefully studied as a cultural object, its
staying power directly dependent upon its ability to distill the humor from an
increasingly complicated world and still function as a repository of shared
significance embodied in form, where:

		Significance refers to the object's incorporation
		of one or more symbols, which suggest a set of
		denotations and connotations, emotions, and memories.
								
					(Griswold, 6)

Thus, a Shakespearean clown could be easily identified by his incorporation of
the time honored tradition of physicality and familiar speech--breaking the
tension as well as interrupting the represented reality to make some familiar
and useful jokes.  This clown samples from society to suggest the appropriate
set of connotations and denotations for whatever topic he addresses.  In The
Two Gentlemen of Verona, for example, the character of Launce appears in a
variety of scenes, almost always as the comic relief.  But it is in his several
monologues where we begin to see him as this cultural object, using the
familiar symbols and placed in the proper area, thus meeting the criterion of
the clown.  In one especially effective moment, Launce appears after a touching
"parting of the lovers" scene (which is soon to be forgotten by Proteus, one of
the lovers in the play), performing a parody of the scene with a cast of
characters which includes his dog, his shoe, his hat, and a broom, all of whom
he speaks with and for, ending the speech with a comparison of his mother's
breath to the scent of his shoe. This scene is an excellent example of the
"mutually influential relationship" between society and its art;  while
maintaining the qualities of his ancestor the pre-modern clown, Launce
impersonates the "parting of the lovers scenes" popular in the tragedies of the
1590's. Later in the play, Launce will ask his dog Crab:  "when didst thou see
me heave up my leg and make water on a gentlewoman's farthingale?" (IV, iv,
37-39).  Again, physical comedy, this time in the form of bathroom humor used
as a cultural reflector, here of the class structure in The Two Gentlemen of
Verona (and in Elizabethan England); not only does Launce, a commoner, have no
idea how to perform in the house of Sylvia, an upper- middle class lady, but
Proteus has misjudged his ability to perform an important errand, sending a
clown to do a man's job.

VI.  Conclusion

The clown which evolved as a response to the many influences of the Renaissance
and the self-development that followed retained from its pre- modern ancestors
elements of the familiar and universal.  This clown, which was enormously
popular during its time, influenced the many forms of theatre which ensued,
including the outlandish, satirical physicality of the Harlequin, and the
tradition of English pantomime.
	
Shakespeare's clown was, nevertheless, lodged in a specific cultural context,
and as time moved on, this liminal figure, however useful, was to be short
lived in the evolution of the "modern drama" in England.  For, however
effective as a theatrical convention, the clowning figure, in fact the
phenomenon of clowning, was to be stifled by a 17th-century action known as the
"expulsion of the Harlequin (Weimann)." In this period, prominent religious
leaders decided that the time and place for ritual tradition was at an end, and
took it upon themselves to rid the stage of this "menace."  In an act
appropriately named "The Reform of the Stage," the ritual figure was excluded
from new dramas.
	
Traces of this art form were to reappear in the form of vaudeville, slapstick,
or today, the postmodern Archaos clowns, whose leader Pierrot Bidon is quoted
as saying:  "To survive, the clowns have to mutate and re-use the scraps of
society's refuse" (Jenkins, 64). This was the same method used by the
pre-modern clown to survive in the newly modern world.  The Renaissance clown
is effectively studied as a cultural object responding to a period of intense
change---change which necessitated the clown as well as providing it with a
plethora of material on which to draw, and which forced the clown from the
stage.  The clown figure is a seminal theatrical convention in society and will
continue to "mutate" and to be present in some form as long as theatre has a
society with which to interact.

VIII.  Afterthought

To study the Renaissance and its effects on the development of the
conventionality of clowning is only useful to a point; it is the application of
this study to contemporary thinking and practical application to the theatre
that is the ultimate focus of my work.  The repository, the archive of which
Griswold speaks is evident in the nameless clowns of the pre-modern, in
Shakespeare's clowns, and in the comic influences on every kind of theater
following them.  However, it is the "action"--the magic of live, contemporary
theater done well--that is the real life's blood of these clowns.  This fall, I
saw Robert Cohen's production of As You Like It, and saw the true meaning of my
studies come to life.  Michael Thomas Holmes brought Touchstone to life in
contemporary readings of the famous clown's monologues; interpretations that, I
think, would have made Shakespeare proud.  Holmes included references to Arnold
Schwarzenegger's Terminator movies, Elvis Presley, Jack Nicholson, and Robert
DeNiro, to name a few. Combined with the physicality he brought to the
performance, he was the overwhelming favorite of the audience, which came alive
every time he took the stage.  It was then that the clown figure was most
evident to me as an actual sponge--immersed in a culture, soaking it up,
extracting the humor, and giving it to the audience in the form of laughter.
Through that performance, I began to understand the staying power of the
convention itself.


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