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Four Fools in the Age of Reason - Laughter, Cruelty, and Power in Early Modern Germany (Hardcover)
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Four Fools in the Age of Reason - Laughter, Cruelty, and Power in Early Modern Germany (Hardcover)
Series: Studies in Early Modern German History
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Unveiling the nearly lost world of the court fools of
eighteenth-century Germany, Dorinda Outram shows that laughter was
an essential instrument of power. Whether jovial or cruel, mirth
altered social and political relations. Outram takes us first to
the court of Frederick William I of Prussia, who emerges not only
as an administrative reformer and notorious militarist but also as
a ""master of fools,"" a ruler who used fools to prop up his
uncertain power. The autobiography of the itinerant fool Peter
Prosch affords a rare insider's view of the small courts in
Catholic south Germany, Austria, and Bavaria. Full of sharp
observations of prelates and princes, the autobiography also
records episodes of the extraordinary cruelty for which the German
princely courts were notorious. Joseph Froehlich, court fool in
Dresden, presents more appealing facets of foolery. A sharp
salesman and hero of the Meissen factories, he was deeply attached
to the folk life of fooling. The book ends by tying the growth of
Enlightenment skepticism to the demise of court foolery around
1800. Outram's book is invaluable for giving us such a vivid
depiction of the court fool and especially for revealing how this
figure can shed new light on the wielding of power in Enlightenment
Europe.
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