Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
First impressions of Twelfth Night can be deceiving as on a simplistic
level it can be portrayed as a typical Shakespearean comedy.
However, Twelfth Night is a mixture of both romantic comedy and
tragedy. The romantic comedy elements can be found throughout the play
as its structure is based on a typical Elizabethan style, it has
escapism with magical settings and happy endings, as is 'Midsummer's
Night Dream'. Also Twelfth night has unusual names such as Sir Toby
Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek, this type of humour is also used in
'Midsummer's Night Dream' in the form of Bottom.
This comedy's main theme being one of a love and all the trials and
tribulations which can be involved with these strong emotional
feelings, it portrays the difficulties which can arise because of the
situations people put themselves into willingly or unwillingly as a
typical Shakespearean comedy always does. It uses fictional settings,
shipwrecks, and weddings with the main characters having to cope with
unusual situations. It uses escapism with magical settings and happy
endings.
There is much to find in the play to makes us smile with lots of songs
and happy events as can be found in Act 2 scene3 with Feste the court
jester singing. He sings throughout the play about different things
Love is one of the themes "What is love? Tis not hereafter; present
mirth have present laughter." As Feste sings there is lots of dancing
and drinking. Sir Toby is seen a number of times getting drunk with
Sir Andrew. This is to amuse the audience with their drunken antics,
conversation and flirting.
There is also plenty of c...
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...ed at by the other
characters because his love for Olivia is revealed, he does not join
in the humour of the celebrations. He has no hope of finding respect
or happiness in the same household and remains an angry outsider
vowing revenge. We do not find out what happens to Antonio, whether he
is released and reunited with his friend. This can surely not be
deemed as a very happy ending to the play with out all the loose ends
tied up.
In conclusion I would say that this play is definitely not a tragedy
but it cannot be classed comfortably as a comedy because of the
elements of cruelty and sadness. The last song from Feste is too
sombre for us to leave the theatre or finish the book laughing; in
fact it would be quite the opposite. The play is maybe more
entertaining for its mixture of light and dark, happy and sad.
William Shakespeare was a Stratford Grammar School boy, who was a member of the Church of England, similar to just about everyone else in Stratford. However, due to some events that occurred in the Shakespeare family home, there is some evidence that could prove that the family may have had some Roman Catholic connections. When William Shakespeare was 10 years old, legal issues and debt took a toll on his family’s life. Shakespeare’s father’s stopped attending alderman meetings which resulted in the removal of his name to become an alderman, and he was also forced to sell his beautiful home. The cause of this crisis is unknown, however the records can be used to throw together the idea that there were peculiar religious events going on (Fox). Due to these mishaps, William Shakespeare’s religion is a bit of a mystery. The play, Hamlet, was written by William Shakespeare during the Elizabethan era, which happened to be a time when religious conflicts were a big deal (Alsaif). The protagonist in the story, Hamlet, is a character who seems to make his choices through his religious beliefs. Hamlet is a very indecisive person, but his thoughts on religion tend to persuade him. In the play Hamlet, William Shakespeare uses the character of Hamlet to show the flaws in all religions. Hamlet does his best to follow the rules of Christianity, but he often questions the morality involved. Although Shakespeare belonged to the Church of England, he didn’t find any particular religion to be perfect.
done at the end of the story he is ‘pure’ at the end of the play this
upon her. She knew she had fallen in love with Duke Orsino and had the
In William Shakespeare’s 1 Henry IV, Falstaff and King Henry IV share father-figure relationships with Henry “Hal,” Prince of Wales. The former, a drunk and cavalier knight, acts as a surrogate father to the prince, while the latter, a determined and distanced monarch, is his blood. Yet, who is the better father-figure to Hal? Although Falstaff and Prince Henry share a strong, quasi father-son relationship, the former’s manifestation of the tavern atmosphere, venality and dishonor are obstacles to the Prince’s goals; King Henry IV, on the other hand, is the better father-figure because he motivates his son to realize his ambitions, and embodies the setting of the court and the monarchy in which the Prince belongs and will one day inherit.
were left out of the happy endings to those plays and that to have a
The ending of this play has closes on a positive note. The rain finally stops the sun is shinning, Dodge's cough is gone and he is able to rest eternally in a state of relief. Halie finally feels as though she hasn't committed a sin that will send her to hell; Vince has come back to start a new life, Tilden finds himself and does whatever it is he had to do. Shepard created an ending which the world could appreciate its simplicity yet complications. A true master at work.
The melodies so memorable, and enjoyable harmonies made for a state of the art musical
The complexity and effect of father-son relationships seems to be a theme that Shakespeare loved to explore in his writings. In Hamlet, the subject is used as a mechanism to identify the similarities between three very different characters: Fortinbras, Laertes, and Hamlet. They have each lost their fathers to violent deaths, which leads them to seek vengeance. As different as they may seem, they all share the common desire to avenge their father’s deaths. The method they each approach this is what differentiates each of their characters, and allows the audience to discern their individual characteristics. Fortinbras, Laertes, and Hamlet’s intense loyalty to their fathers drives them to individual extreme measures of revenge, exemplifying Shakespeare’s masterful use of describing the human psyche during Elizabethan times.
The battle between good and evil presents itself throughout William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet in numerous ways. Throughout the play, Hamlet’s struggle to follow his moral values and beliefs is evident. Hamlet can be viewed as a strong character with good intentions but had fallen vulnerable for his need to avenge his father’s death, King Hamlet. Seeking vengeance for king Hamlets death is viewed as dishonorable under the eyes of God but shows that Hamlet is as susceptible to sin as any other character in the play. Therefore, Hamlets character is caught between his Christian faith and the need to avenge his father’s death.
After Olivia has her very first conversation with Cesario (Viola), where he tries to woo her for Duke Orsino, she immediately falls in love with him. After Cesario leaves her palace, Olivia says to herself ‘Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit do give thee fivefold blazon. Not too fast; soft, soft. Unless the master were the man. How now? Even so quickly may one catch the plague?’ Here Olivia states that Cesario’s external features are what attract her to him. Her metaphor contains a s...
In Twelfth Night, a play written by William Shakespeare, morals are a highlighted part of each character’s temperament. In the play, some characters - for example, Malvolio, have weak morals, they are treated poorly. An imperative part of a personality is one’s morals; morals isolate people from being obedient and disobedient. There are four humours that the characters’ are categorised into, they include: phlegmatic, melancholic, choleric, and sanguineous. The characters who represent three of the humours are Sir Toby Belch, who is sanguineous, Duke Orsino, who is choleric, and Malvolio, who is melancholic.
Reading the play now, it seems hard to believe that the unusualness of the ending could have gone apparently unnoticed for so long. With the stage set for the usual comedic ending of multiple marriages, the news of the Princess's father's death comes as a complete shock: Marcadé enters at a moment of such carefree mirth that the Princess playfully chides him, "thou interruptest our merriment" (5.2.712). A moment later, his news is told and the atmosphere of the play has noticeably changed, as Berowne himself acknowledges when he says, "The scene begin...
ending of the play is an integral part to the structure of the play in
In Shakespeare’s play, Twelfth Night or What you Will, the characters are involved in a plot complete with trickery, disguise, and love. Each character is defined not by his or her gender or true identity, but by the role they are forced to take because of the complicated situation that arises. Unlike their gender, the speech the characters give an insight to their true personalities. In the Twelfth Night, the character Duke Orsino uses flowery and over-dramatic language, long poetic sentence structure, and melodramatic metaphors to display his overemotional romantic nature despite the different emotions in his various speeches.
The musical selections and songs that were sung told a story and narrated the almost the entire film, as is expected in...