Before Harley Quinn There Was... You Guessed It... The Harlequin!

by Glen Downey, Comics in Education, www.comicsineducation.com

THE COVER OF HARLEY QUINN #1, DC COMICS, 2013

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Great Characters Often Come with Great Traditions

The next time you're enjoying the antics of DC Comics' Harley Quinn, you might consider where she gets her moniker from. Indeed, the Harlequin is a figure from the Commedia dell'Arte tradition, and has a variety of characteristics that can help to explain the Joker's favourite sidekick. The Harlequin or Arlecchino was very nimble and agile, and was a comical servant who often attempted to realize his own plans and schemes even as he was supposed to be helping his master. Dressed in a brightly-coloured costume, the Arlecchino was a tricky one to pin down, and could use his quickness to take advantage of a situation.

In having my class visually brainstorm characters from the medieval stage and from the Commedia dell'Arte tradition, I was pleased that Gillian chose the Harlequin. Here's what she came up with.

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(c) 2014, Gillian Kiessling, All rights reserved. Published with permission of the artist.

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And this, incidentally, is what you might expect the original Harlequin to look like:

THE ARLECCHINO CHARACTER FROM BOTH THE 19TH AND 17TH CENTURIES

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Gillian has packed a considerable amount of information into a short space. We learn that the Arlecchino or Harlequin had connections to the zanni in the Commmedia dell'Arte tradition on the Italian stage, that he was a comic character and an acrobat, and that he used slapstick comedy by wielding a battachio as a weapon. All of this information can, in fact, be found just in the bottom right hand corner of the page!

Harley Quinn's battachio may have gotten a bit bigger and she's perhaps using it in a more lethal way than her late medieval and early renaissance ancestor, but understanding the tradition out of which she has evolved can only make readers and fans more knowledgeable about her character.

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