Who are funny characters in Shakespeare's plays?

Answer 1

Fools are the funny characters in Shakepeare plays such as Touchstone in As You Like It, Feste in Twelfth Night, Costard in Love's Labour's Lost, Peter in Romeo and Juliet. The funny characters are also known as "clowns". The Porter in Macbeth is hilarious. The gravediggers in Hamlet provide comic relief. Thersites in Troilus and Cressida, Apemantus in Timon of Athens and the Fool in King Lear are more abusive than funny.

Falstaff (from the two history plays King Henry The Fourth and also The Merry Wives of Windsor) is probably one of the most notable "clown" characters in a Shakespearean play. He is the fat, drunk, older, thieving friend of Prince Hal.

Answer 2

William Shakespeare's plays are among the most represented and appreciated plays of the history of drama, both, tragedies and comedies. In Shakespeare comedies, there are the following archetypes of characters: The good-natured protagonists, men and women, generally lovers who had to face several trials to be able to live their love, a clever servant or sidekick and a villain or villains that aren't that much of a threat, and that usually get their punishment as some sort of ridicule.

Answer 3

Some events do occur in a number of them. In particular, it is common for a woman to disguise herself as a man (Twelfth Night, Cymbeline, Merchant of Venice, Two Gentlemen of Verona, As You Like It), and occasionally a man is tricked into sleeping with one woman when he thinks he's sleeping with another (Measure for Measure, All's Well that Ends Well), and of course occasionally there are identical twins who get confused for each other (Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night), and sometimes there is a young woman whose father wants her to marry some idiot she hates and who elopes with the unpopular suitor (The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Cymbeline, A Midsummer Night's Dream), and people who flirt with each other when they are in disguise (As You Like It, Love's Labour's Lost, Twelfth Night, and sort of in Much Ado About Nothing), and some rather unpleasant character who gets taken down a peg (Twelfth Night, Merchant of Venice) and interference by fairies both fake (Merry Wives) and real (A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest), and families long separated who get reunited (The Winter's Tale, Pericles, Comedy of Errors, The Tempest, Cymbeline) and dopey policemen (Much Ado About Nothing, Love's Labour's Lost, Measure for Measure). And of course, they almost all end up with the right fellows and the right young women ending up correctly paired up and married (exceptions: Love's Labour's Lost, Troilus and Cressida).

And yet each play contains its own special events: A woman who must marry the man who correctly answers a skill-testing question (Merchant of Venice), a woman who flirts with her lover pretending to be a man acting as herself (As You Like It), a couple who really like each other but are so used to insulting each other they cannot bring themselves to admit it (Much Ado About Nothing), some women teaching a man a lesson (Merry Wives), a man teaching a woman a lesson (Taming of the Shrew), a man forced to marry a woman he does not want to marry (All's Well that Ends Well), a man eaten by a bear (Winter's Tale), a jailor's daughter who falls for one of the prisoners (Two Noble Kinsmen), a love potion (A Midsummer Night's Dream), two lovers who both mistakenly believe the other to be dead (Cymbeline), a corrupt and hypocritical judge (Measure for Measure) and so on.

Answer 4

A clown, jester or fool character is common in Shakespeare plays of all genres. This is because there was one member of the company who was a comedian and a funny part had to be written for him in every play. What kind of funny depended on what actor was the comedian of the time. Will Kempe was the clown at the beginnning of Shakespeare's writing career and Robert Armin toward the end. Kempe's characters were more foolish and silly; Armin's more witty and cynical.

The early comedies often had more than one such character: often one is a witty servant, and one a stupid one. Launce and Speed in Two Gentlemen, Launcelot Gobbo and his father in Merchant of Venice, Grumio, Tranio and Biondello in Taming of the Shrew, the two Dromios in Comedy of Errors, Moth and Costard in Love's Labour's Lost.

Dumb policemen were a common theme: Dull in Love's Labour's Lost, Elbow in Measure for Measure, and the incomparable Dogberry in Much Ado.

Other clowns were Touchstone in As You Like It, Feste in Twelfth Night, Lavatch in All's Well, and Bottom in Midsummer Night's Dream.

The character type is recognizable in plays that are not comedies (or are romances or tragicomedies) as Apemantus in Timon, Autolycus in the Winter's Tale, Thersites in Troilus and Cressida, the porter in Macbeth, the gravedigger in Hamlet, and the fool in Lear. He is also the foundation of one of Shakespeare's greatest characters: Falstaff.

Answer 5

comic hero.....for apex by JB

Answer 6

Comic hero