Theodur adorno biography of william shakespeare

Philosophy & Literature

Sam Gilchrist Hall surveys folly and wisdom in Shakespeare’s world and beyond.

When Roman emperors rode in triumphal processions, they would have a fool in the chariot with them, continually whispering to them something along the lines of “You are only human.

You too will die – just like beggars and slaves do.” Shakespeare returns to the idea of mortality obsessively in Hamlet (c.1600); for instance, when the antic Prince rhymes: “Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay, / Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.” Indeed, one of the most striking images of late medieval Europe is the Dance Macabre or Theodor W.