 At the same time, Shakespeare greatly helped popularize the wise fool in the English theater through incorporating the trope in a variety of characters throughout many of his plays.While Shakespeare's early plays largely portray the wise fool in comic terms as a buffoon, the later plays characterize the fool in a much more melancholic and contemplative light.For example, in "King Lear", the Fool becomes the only one capable of speaking truth to the King and often takes on the role of revealing life's tragic nature to those around him.