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A clown, in Shakespeare's day, meant a yokel, a country bumpkin. But the parts of these bumpkins were comedy parts, so he was also a comedian.

The parts marked "clown" are usually servants, people like Launcelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice.

In around 1600, The Lord Chamberlain's Men changed personnel. Will Kempe, a clown in the traditional sense was out, and Robert Armin, a more witty, intellectual and trenchant kind of comedian was in. He changed how clowns were portrayed in Shakespeare and other drama.

Do not imagine that Shakespeare's clowns wore the white faces, red noses, and oversized shoes of a Barnum and Bailey clown. That image is a wholly American invention. Shakespeare's clowns, especially when they were recognized as such in the context of a household or court, wore special clothes in a patchwork pattern, familiar as the "motley" of a court jester, and sometimes carried a "bauble" or jester's wand. But not always: this was not the costume of the Gravedigger in Hamlet or the Porter in Macbeth.

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