Four Fools in the Age of Reason - (Studies in Early Modern German History) by Dorinda Outram (Hardcover)

About the Book

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.

Book Synopsis

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 Fröhlich, 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.

Review Quotes

If one thinks that court fools had disappeared from the European stage by the eighteenth century, this fascinating book proves one wrong. German courts of the eighteenth century did not just host philosophes and Aufklärer, such as Voltaire and Lessing. In Four Fools in the Age of Reason, Dorinda Outram uncovers the biographies of fools migrating from one court to another, such as Peter Prosch or the improbably named Joseph Fröhlich, and places them alongside the better-known figure of Jacob Paul Gundling, who thus appears in a novel light as well. Based on extensive research, this stimulating, elegantly written, and convincingly argued book reestablishes fools at the heart of the "Age of Enlightenment", and challenges not only our view of the eighteenth century, but also our own notions of rationality.

Outram (Univ. of Rochester) adds to her previous books on the Enlightenment and the French Revolution with a wonderful new tome about German royal courts and the role of the court fool. Outram studies four fools in German courts as Europe developed during the Enlightenment.... Taken together, these cases shed light on the different ways in which power was exercised across Germany and throughout Enlightenment Europe, offering excellent historiographies. Though perhaps unfamiliar to many scholars, this interesting topic provides a stimulating read.

Outram's slim book is beautifully written, fast-paced, and a fun read. It shines a light on forgottenfigures in German history and reveals how inextricable perverse laughter and violenceare to our understanding of the self-styled age of reason. This book should be read byanyone interested in the European intellectual or cultural history of the eighteenthcentury and it will make avid converts of those who have not yet discovered the abidingfascination of this pivotal age for our own time.

This book is original to an exceptional degree. The fools Outram discusses reveal a past age in its strangest and most alien form, especially in showing an alliance between power, cruelty, and fun which must be shocking to present-day readers.

About the Author

Dorinda Outram is Gladys I. and Franklin W. Clark Professor of History at the University of Rochester and the author of Panorama of the Enlightenment and other books.