Tuesday 5 March 2019

Magic School: The Wisdom of the Fool

Tutor Ken Rees is running a two-Saturday course on The Wisdom of the Fool, in central London this spring.

Here is the information about the course:
This two-day course will examine the role of the fool and the trickster in myth, literature and society to illustrate the lessons s/he may have to teach us today. We will look at the relationship between wisdom and folly, status and delusion, comedy and tragedy and how these dynamics have been illuminated by the funny man and the funny woman, the court jester and the clown.

Mythology and folktale presents us with a brilliant panoply of the buffoon, the divine eccentric, but also the culture-bearer. Coyote, Eshu, Legba, Loki, Brer Rabbit, Monkey or Hermes – they all connect us with lila, the play of the world and provide us with a foundation both for creative art and for homo ludens (the person as player). In appreciating their roles in story, and their human transmutation into the street entertainer, the medieval court jester and music-hall comedian we can reclaim the origins and functions of laughter in the psyche. In addition, they teach us much about the value of ambiguity, contradiction and guile.

We all make the journey of the fool, time and time again and this is well illustrated through the major arcana of the tarot pack to which reference will also be made.
Here's the reading list, with Amazon links:

The Social History of the Fool by S. Billington, Harvester, Glasgow, 1984
The Fool, his Social and Literary History by E. Welsford, Faber, 1968 (1935)
Trickster Makes this World by L. Hyde, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1998

Venue: The Mary Ward Centre, Queen Square, London WC1 (nearest tube stations – Holborn, Russell Square)
Dates: 23 and 30 March 2019
Time: 10.15am – 5.30pm
Course No: 452
Fees: £56 Cons: £20
Enrolment: 0207 269 6000 (or online)
Enquires: 0208 671 6372
Website: www.marywardcentre.ac.uk

The pictures show the Mary Ward Centre and Trickster Makes this World

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