This paper investigates the affinities between the folly of Buck Mulligan in
Joyce’s Ulysses and that of Enrico IV in Pirandello’s homonymous play. After looking
at Michel Foucault’s Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique, this paper will postulate that
Buck Mulligan and Enrico IV seem to precede Foucault’s destabilizing vision: they are
characters who, through various acts of folly, simulate the exterior signs of madness and
play the fools to create confusion amidst existing forms of socialization. I shall also be
looking into Robert Bell’s Jocoserious Joyce (from where the terms ‘foolosopher king’
and ‘mocking gargoyle’ are borrowed) and at Elio Gioanola’s Pirandello e la follia to
prove that these modernist clown prototypes become a mirror of painful truths to other
characters. Mulligan, for instance, reveals with irony the true nature of Stephen Dedalus,
religion and Ireland, whilst Enrico reveals to his visitors their falsity and the dark realm
of life’s masks. In both cases this is expressed with mood swings of mocking irony and
effusions of sentiment. Both characters are also portrayed as having no fixed identities:
they indulge in a tragicomic ritual of masks and folly with a delight for the ambiguities of
self and language. In their words and actions, Mulligan and Enrico seem to be unshaped
by history and free from any responsibility; they seem so fulfilled in playing the fools and
thus become ‘foolosopher’ kings themselves, which act the part of sceptical jokers of
the universe.peer-reviewe
