Twelfth Night

"This fellow is wise enough to play the fool… This is a practice As full of labour as a wise man's art…" (pg. 64)

Shakespeare's comedies always seem to enjoy a more ambiguous reputation than his tragedies. Whereas, once the peculiarities of language are overcome, dramatic schemes and actions like those in Macbeth, Hamlet and King Lear can be readily identified and appreciated by modern audiences, it is often much harder to parse the worth of one of the Bard's comedies. That they do have worth – The Merchant of Venice and The Taming of the Shrew are ingenious satires, and A Midsummer Night's Dream is metaphysical drunkenness – is why so many readers and lovers of the theatre make the effort to meet them halfway, or sometimes more show more than halfway.

This is why I happily dismissed my doubts about Twelfth Night and why, even though this play doesn't have the deeper worth of those other Shakespeare comedies I mentioned above, I cannot fault it. The clue to Twelfth Night's essence is in its title, which has no bearing on the content of the play: 'Twelfth Night' is a day of festivities, a date in early January to mark the end of the Christmas period. To this end, Shakespeare's light romp of mistaken identities, bawdy language and plenty of sing-song, was meant as just a piece of fluff for Queen Elizabeth's court. The equivalent of one of our Boxing Day TV repeats as we pig out on Quality Street.

Despite this light remit, Shakespeare can't help but be erudite, dexterous and interesting. For all its mistaken identities and merry pranking, it is one of the easiest Shakespearean comedies to follow. It's tidy and it's never dull and it's one of Shakespeare's more quotable plays. Its success in doing all this well means this piece of fluff has survived, through the skill of its author, for much longer than would otherwise be expected. After all, while some, like Hamlet and Macbeth, are born great, and others like The Merchant of Venice and King Lear achieve greatness, some, by virtue of sharing such company, have greatness thrust upon them. Twelfth Night is one of the latter. show less

One of Shakespeare's better comedies, it's a definite favorite of mine to both read and watch either on stage or on television (think Felicity Kendal as Viola and Trevor Peacock as the fool, Feste). There's a bit of mean-spirited humor, but the part the Clown plays within the confines of the play is both endearing, funny, and tinged with sadness. What starts with a ship wreck turns into a case of mistaken identities, a woman playing a man, wayward letters, drunks, and a lot of singing. It may lack the depth (and good advice) of "Hamlet," but "Twelfth Night" shouldn't be pooh-pooh'd as merely light-hearted fun. If you look into it hard enough, you can find the sadder aspects of life and the roles we play to different individuals.

The best of the bard's comedies with a wealth of character relevation, and lovely passages of poetry. The plot is simple: a shipwrecked slip of a girl, with no great career prospects, manages to do a successful male impersonation, and gain a comfortable marriage. Hi-jinks ensue, written by an author who did not like puritans. I seem to have read it nine times, and seen a performance.

Shakespeare's last great romantic comedy combines the wit of the other great comedies with some rather mean-spirited slapstick more reminiscent of his very first comedies. The first is provided largely by the male-impersonating heroine who finds herself, as an intermediary between lovers, becoming the true object of affection from both lovers. The slapstick is provided by Sir Toby Belch, a small-scale Falstaff, and his idiot friends, who make life miserable for a major domo whose Puritanism does not protect him from vanity and desire. I loved it, despite the bullying.

If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:
'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe'er,
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical.
Act 1, 1.1-15

Every major character in Twelfth Night experiences some form of desire or love. Duke Orsino is in love with Olivia. Viola falls in love with show more Orsino, while disguised as his pageboy, Cesario. Olivia falls in love with Cesario. This love triangle is only resolved when Olivia falls in love with Viola's twin brother, Sebastian, and, at the last minute, Orsino decides that he actually loves Viola. Twelfth Night derives much of its comic force by satirizing these lovers. In the lines that open the play (above), Shakespeare pokes fun at Orsino's flowery love poetry, making it clear that Orsino is more in love with being in love than with his supposed beloveds. At the same time, by showing the details of the intricate rules that govern how nobles engage in courtship, Shakespeare examines how characters play the "game" of love. Viola (as Cesario) has the following lines in Act 1, scene 5:
Make me a willow cabin at your gate
And call upon my soul within the house;
Write loyal cantons of contemned love
And sing them loud even in the dead of night;
Halloo your name to the reverberate hills
And make the babbling gossip of the air
Cry out 'Olivia!' O, You should not rest
Between the elements of air and earth
But you should pity me. (251-259)

Twelfth Night further mocks the main characters' romantic ideas about love through the escapades of the servants. Malvolio's idiotic behavior, which he believes will win Olivia's heart, serves to underline Orsino's own only-slightly-less silly romantic ideas. Meanwhile, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Sir Toby Belch, and Maria, are always cracking crass double entendres that make it clear that while the nobles may spout flowery poetry about romantic love, that love is at least partly motivated by desire and sex. Shakespeare further makes fun of romantic love by showing how the devotion that connects siblings (Viola and Sebastian) and servants to masters (Antonio to Sebastian and Maria to Olivia) actually prove more constant than any of the romantic bonds in the play.

But there is more than love and desire in this amazing comedy. At the opening when Viola is shipwrecked in Illyria she bemoans that she cannot join her lost twin brother Sebastian in Elysium. Illyria is not Elysium however it reminds those familiar with As You Like It of the Arcadian forest of Arden. In both plays the setting is otherworldly--a place apart from the rest of civilization.

There is also melancholy, for several characters in Twelfth Night suffer from some version of love-melancholy. Orsino exhibits many symptoms of the disease (including lethargy, inactivity, and interest in music and poetry). Dressed up as Cesario, Viola describes herself as dying of melancholy, because she is unable to act on her love for Orsino. Olivia also describes Malvolio as melancholy and blames it on his narcissism. It is this melancholy that represents the painful side of love.

Perhaps more central to this play in particular are the themes of deception, disguise, and performance. With these themes Twelfth Night raises questions about the nature of gender and sexual identity. That Viola has disguised herself as a man, and that her disguise fools Olivia into falling in love with her, is genuinely funny. On a more serious note, however, Viola's transformation into Cesario, and Olivia's impossible love for him/her, also imply that, maybe, distinctions between male/female and heterosexual/homosexual are not as absolutely firm as you might think. When you recall that the players in Shakespeare's Globe were all men and boys these issues become both more humorous and serious at the same time. You may get a more vivid idea of this theme by viewing clips of the recent all-male production of Twelfth Night starring Mark Rylance.*

This play rivals As You Like It for the title of the best of Shakespeare's comedies. While I prefer the former, there are complexities of love and desire mixed with questions of sexual identity that make this comedy a fine way to experience and enjoy Shakespeare. show less

One of Shakespeare’s plays turns out to be surprisingly (at least to me) sexually fluid. I like the complexity of the pretending game going on, even if it gets rather confusing sometimes.

A case of mistaken identity is always a good time. I'm embarking on the Shakespeare 2020 challenge, and starting off with a comedy is always a great idea, in my book.

This year, I'll be looking for spaces to integrate queer, womanist identities, and the characters of Antonio, Malvolio, Clown, and Maria provide plenty of fodder for consideration.

Questions I have: is Maria a villain or an opportunistic agent? And is this bad?
Is Malvolio a bad guy or misunderstood?
Are the Duke (and possibly Viola) queer?