Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is a play with themes that parallel the folly of the festival it is named after. The main storyline of the plot plays on this a lot by mixing up the stereotypes around gender that were very present at the time. However, a sub-plot involving secondary characters defines this theme even more. It takes the idea even further by relating servants’ attempts to blur the lines between social classes. Twelfth Night’s Maria and Malvolio both have great aspirations to rise above their social class. However, Maria succeeds where Malvolio fails because of her capability to make use of the satiric ambiance of her mistress’s household to achieve her goals.
To begin this essay, I will provide a brief analysis of the atmosphere of the play. I will also establish the mood created by Shakespeare to give a comedic tone to his story which would otherwise have been a maudlin story revolving around romance. The play, which actually has the full title Twelfth Night, or What You Will, was written specifically to be performed for the twelfth night of Christmas. In Elizabethan England, this was a day where people are handed out slices of a cake cooked with a pea and a bean. The two people that eat the special slices are appointed King and Queen of the evening’s festivities. As Shakespeare purposefully tried to emulate, the themes of the festivals revolve around servants according themselves more privileges than they were usually given by their masters. Like it is demonstrated by Shakespeare in the play, sometimes people dressed up in the opposite gender or even as wealthy nobles. Centering his play’s plot around this is what took his play from being only romance-oriented to being more comedic and thus more appropria...
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...ictably fails to achieve his goals.
To conclude, though Twelfth Night’s main plot revolves around melancholic romance, what truly makes it a comedy is the erratic mood set by sub-plots to recall that of the festival with the same name. In the play, both Maria and Malvolio, servants to Olivia, show great aspirations to rise high above their social classes. However, Maria, being much more in-synch with the offbeat mood of the household, succeeds easily in marrying a nobleman, while Malvolio, stiff and pompous, just fails miserably. The conclusion to the play, which is contrary to what viewers would ever hope to happen in their real lives, succeeds in bringing enjoyment to all the lower-class people who watched it. Although the play includes many clever paradoxes, it is first and foremost a play created to entertain servants on their fun-filled rare day off.
Twelfth Night, written by Shakespeare between the years of 1599 and 1601 (“Shakespeare-Online”), is easily one of his most well-known plays. A year after the assumed date of publication, on February the 2nd of 1602, Twelfth Night was performed for the first time (“William-Shakespeare)”. The location of the production is thought to have taken place in the Middle Temple, which was one of four law schools within London that were known as the Inns of Court (“Shakespeare-Online”). Though some would classify Twelfth Night as generic, it is laced with a sharp sense of humor and controversial concerns that can easily be applied to the issues of present day. Many of these issues, such as marriage, gender identity, sex, homosexuality, and social ambition, are relevant in today’s society, making them easy to relate to. The central theme of the play is romance. The characters all experience love, in one way or another, whether it be unrequited or shared between more than one person. The plot is intricately woven, sometimes confusingly so, between twists and turns throughout the multiple acts, but it never strays too far from the subject of adoration. Despite the hardships, misperception and deceit the characters experience, six individuals are brought together in the name of holy matrimony in three distinct nuptials.
William, Shakespeare Twelfth Night. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume B. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2006. 1079-1139.
Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is a comedy that has been interpreted in different ways, enabling one to receive multiple experiences of the same story. Due to the content and themes of the play, it can be creatively challenging to producers and their casting strategies. Instead of being a hindrance, I find the ability for one to experiment exciting as people try to discover strategies that best represent entertainment for the audience, as well as the best ways to interpret Shakespeare’s work.
"William Shakespeare, William. "Twelfth Night." Norton's Anthology of English Literature. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York City: W.W. Norton & Co., 2010.
Feste, the fool character in Twelfth Night, in many ways represents a playwright figure, and embodies the reach and tools of the theater. He criticizes, manipulates and entertains the other characters while causing them to reflect on their life situations, which is similar to the way a playwright such as Shakespeare interacts with his audience. Furthermore, more so than the other characters in the play he accomplishes this in a highly performative way, involving song and clever wordplay that must be decoded, and is thus particularly reflective of the mechanisms at the command of the playwright. Feste is a representation of the medieval fool figure, who is empowered by his low status and able to speak the truth of the kingdom. A playwright speaks the truth by using actors and fictional characters, who are in a parallel low status in comparison to the audience, as they lack the dimensionality of real people. Thus, the role Feste plays in the lives of the characters in the play resembles the role the play itself plays in the lives of the audience watching the performance. This essay will explore this comparison first by analyzing similarities between the way in which Feste interacts with other characters and the way the playwright interact with the audience, and then focus on the similarities between the aims and content of these interactions.
Wells, Stanley, and Gary Taylor, eds. "Twelfth Night, or What You Will". William Shakespeare: The Complete Works. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1998.
Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing is, on the surface, a typical romantic comedy with a love-plot that ends in reconciliation and marriage. This surface level conformity to the conventions of the genre, however, conceals a deeper difference that sets Much Ado apart. Unlike Shakespeare’s other romantic comedies, Much Ado about Nothing does not mask class divisions by incorporating them into an idealized community. Instead of concealing or obscuring the problem of social status, the play brings it up explicitly through a minor but important character, Margaret, Hero’s “waiting gentlewoman.” Shakespeare suggests that Margaret is an embodiment of the realistic nature of social class. Despite her ambition, she is unable to move up in hierarchy due to her identity as a maid. Her status, foiling Hero’s rich, protected upbringing, reveals that characters in the play, as well as global citizens, are ultimately oppressed by social relations and social norms despite any ambition to get out.
Barton, Anne. Introduction to Twelfth Night. The Riverside Shakespeare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1974. 403-407.
Twelfth Night was written in 1601 by William Shakespeare. Another meaning to Twelfth Night was the coming of Wise Men. This also called “Epiphany”. Epiphany means sudden stroke of insight, a sudden understanding of the “reality of things.” A seeing beyond appearances. Often consider moments of Epiphany to be crucial events in our intellectual, spiritual lives. At Epiphany of Christ, first who saw the powers that child stood for. For centuries Twelfth Night had been celebrated with plays; one of the most theatrical nights of the year. Audience would become involved in action, plays would spill over into streets, halls of houses where performance taking place.
The main theme of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is identity. Identity causes very much confusion and pain in the play and when true identity is found happiness reigns. Identity is a very important part of the play a character who struggles most with identity is Malvolio. Malvolio is the steward of Olivia and struggles greatly with identity throughout the play. His great egotism and ambition lead him to fall victim to a prank which leads him to question his identity. In the end he finds his place and is led back to where he started. In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night the main theme of identity is portrayed quite well in the character Malvolio as he struggles with finding his position in the world.
Logan, Thad Jenkins. "Twelfth Night: The Limits of Festivity." Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama. N.p.: Rice University, 1982. 223-38. Vol. 22 of Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900. Rpt. in Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print.
Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night, Or, What You Will. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2009. Print.
Humor in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night In Twelfth Night we see different types of humour. There is the witty
Critics call Twelfth Night one of William Shakespeare’s most poetic and musical plays. Shakespeare writes poetic lines for the major characters, Viola, Orsino, and Olivia, and gives the Fool, and other minor characters, songs to sing throughout the play. The particularly romantic lines of the play make it seem as if the characters are professional poets themselves. Shakespeare also uses the music and poetry in Twelfth Night to foreshadow what is going to happen for the rest of the performance and to reveal major themes in the play. Music and poetry become major characters in the play themselves.
...h the underlying theme of festivity in the play. Edward Cahill’s article and evidence from the play provides solid evidence to support this argument. However, what Salingar hasn’t addressed in his article is that the sub-plot also serves to illustrate the dangers of unchecked festivity. The sub-plot is absolutely necessary to the play and adds a layer of depth and insight into the themes of Twelfth Night but most of all, the subplot is what allows this play to be classed as a comedy.