Touchstone (As You Like It)

Touchstone is the name of the court fool or jester character in Shakespeare's play As You Like It.

In Shakespeare's Clown, David Wiles suggests that Robert Armin played the part of Touchstone in the first productions of As You Like It (145). The addition of Armin to the Chamberlain's Men in 1599 and the character of Touchstone marked the beginning of a series of court fool characters; these characters differed greatly from earlier Shakespearian fools because their humour is mainly derived from the fool's wit and intellect. The earlier fools of this period were often nothing but stooges.

References

• Wiles, David. Shakespeare's Clown. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1987.