ASF Study Materials for

by William Shakespeare

Study Materials written by

Susan Willis
ASF Dramaturg
[email protected]
Contact ASF: 1.800.841.4273, www.asf.net
 1

by William Shakespeare Welcome to Twelfth Night

Shakespeare usually lets the subplot
provide a key image for the action of his plays, Display and Hooking the Prey
and that is certainly true for Twelfth
Night. With Sir Toby typecast as a Lord
of Misrule, revelry rules the house,
Characters
much as Malvolio tries to stem the
In Illyria: tide of booze. Instead, that tide carries
Duke Orsino, ruler of Illyria even the staunch steward to heights
Valentine
Curio } attendants
to Orsino
(or depths) of giddy aspiration in the
name of love, enticed by a drunken
prank and his own egotistic fantasy.
Olivia, a countess
So what is the image for love in this
Maria, her gentlewoman play—without doubt, it's intoxication!
Malvolio, Olivia's steward Love is the bubbly; it packs a punch; it
Feste, a professional fool can send you silly or sobbing; and the
Fabian, Olivia's servant recovery can be a sobering surprise.
Sir Toby Belch, Olivia's Shakespeare knows everyone
kinsman loves a party, and no one throws a
party like he does. In fact, the title itself
Sir Andrew Aguecheek, a
tells us to expect a wild and raucous
foolish wooer of Olivia
Mardi Gras-style entertainment,
A priest and the play certainly lives up to
its billing. Widely considered to be
From the sea: the last and perhaps the greatest of Order becomes disordered by dreams of love
Viola, a shipwrecked Shakespeare's romantic comedies, the Bard in both the main plot and subplot of the play. Here
looks at love one more time and at the glorious the subplot characters scheme and spy to skewer
gentlewoman, later
foolishness of being in its clutches. Both his wit Malvolio's pride with a fake love letter in H. C. Selous's
disguised as Cesario 1830s illustration.
Sebastian, her twin brother, and his wisdom abound in Twelfth Night—that
state of intoxicating confusion through which
also shipwrecked
true love eventually finds its way. How the Comedy Works
Antonio, a merchant-sailor who
saves Sebastian Shakespeare's comedies begin in crisis,
A Sea Captain, who saves the traditional comic "separation," and work
"There's something in 't through increasing complications and love trials
Viola
That is deceivable." until they reach the reunion, reconciliation, or
Setting: Illyria
—Sebastian, 4.3 resolution that ends a comedy.
Twelfth Night opens with unrequited love—
(in the Renaissance, Illyria
always a problem in a romantic plot—and a
was the region we know Contents of this Study Guide shipwreck in which Viola believes she lost her
as the former Yugoslavia; Information that can be adapted to any twin brother, Sebastian. Such an opening seems
Shakespeare may imply grade level includes: more tragic than comic, but once we learn
a more imaginary/fantasy • structure, plus an act-by-act analysis Sebastian is alive and mourning his drowned
realm) • the play's themes, characters, and twin sister, comic resolution becomes possible,
imagery especially to resolve the love triangle beset with
• the cultural/historical context of ideas mistaken identity that has developed in Illyria.
• courtly love rhetoric and comparable The comic subplot reflects the giddy and
Renaissance sonnets/poetry impulsive emotion of love in the main plot
• relevant Renaissance theatre practices with its own booze-driven gratifications, more
• discussion topics and activities (in blue) focused on indulgence and revenge than loving
resolution.
 2

by William Shakespeare Twelfth Night Fact Sheet

Genre: Romantic comedy— Plot: In Illyria, Duke Orsino loves
Shakespeare's last in this genre the Countess Olivia, who has pledged to
mourn the recent deaths of her father and
Date of composition: circa 1600, just brother for seven years. On the shore of
after the move to the Globe, about the Illyria appears Viola, survivor of a shipwreck
same time as Hamlet which claimed her twin brother. Needing a
refuge, she disguises herself as a boy to
Sources: Several Renaissance Italian become a page, Cesario, at Orsino's court.
comedies known as Gl'Ingannati She promptly falls in love with him—only
or Gl'Inganni [to deceive or trick] to have him send her to woo Olivia for
are comparable to Shakespeare's him. Olivia hears her impassioned plea for
main plot confusions, and the Orsino and immediately falls in love with
preface to one includes a Malevolti. the young page.
Shakespeare also likely knew the Also wooing Olivia is Sir Andrew
adapted tale of "Apollonius and Aguecheek under the inebriated guidance
Silla," comparable to the main plot of Olivia's kinsman, Sir Toby Belch, who is
but which includes a pregnancy and bilking him of money. When their partying is
abandonment that he excludes. chastized by the steward Malvolio, they and
the gentlewoman Maria conceive a practical
Length: With slightly over 2400 lines, it joke to convince Malvolio that Olivia loves
is the fourth shortest comedy in the him, which is actually his secret fantasy.
Olivia in mourning (above) canon. The play is 61% prose and He falls for their fake letter and obeys it,
and (below) Maria chastizes Sir appearing to Olivia smiling and wearing
39% verse—only Merry Wives and
Toby for his late night indulgence
Much Ado have a higher percentage yellow stockings. Maria says he's mad and
(both by Sir John Gilbert)
of prose. Olivia, beset by her own love mania, leaves
them to deal with him. They do—by locking
"I am sure care's an Setting: Illyria, though sometimes called Malvolio up as a madman.
enemy to life." a fantasy realm, was on the eastern Then Sebastian, Viola's undrowned
—Sir Toby, 1.3 shore of the Adriatic Sea in the area of twin brother, appears in Illyria and is
the former Yugoslavia. mistaken for Cesario by the brawling Sir
Andrew and Sir Toby and later by Olivia,
Longest roles in the play: Sir Toby, to whom he becomes betrothed. When
Viola, and Feste Orsino and Cesario appear at Olivia's
house, revelations and reunions abound.
Words and Imagery:
• courtly love imagery: disease: Orsino
Things to watch for in production:
in 1.1 is lovesick, and when Olivia in
• the twinning
1.5 realizes she loves Cesario, she
• the mood of Illyria (for instance, which
asks "even so quickly may one catch
song seems to be the "theme song"—
the plague?"
the carpe diem "O mistress mine," one
the hunt: In 1.1 Orsino uses the
of the drinking songs, or the last song,
common Petrarchan image of hunting
"When that I was and a little tiny boy"
the hart, that is, the [beloved's] heart.
with its refrain of "The rain it raineth
flowers: usually used to describe the
every day"?)
beloved's beauty, Orsino in 1.1 leaves
• the tone of the subplot—innocent fun or
to seek a "bed of violets"; he will
a bit more malicious?
eventually marry Viola. His imagery is
far more conventionally Petrarchan
than Viola's more individual and
heartfelt imagery for love.
 3

Studying the Play: Act One—Impulse

The five scenes of Act One introduce to disengage but, like Olivia, only finds herself
by William Shakespeare the major characters and hurl the action into thrown back into emotional life. Shakespeare
complication and adversity. What more could puts the "stinger" at the end of 1.4. We meet
one ask of an opening? Viola in her new guise as Cesario and watch her
• a young man in love but unrequited receive her first task, wooing Olivia for Orsino;
• a shipwreck stranding a young woman and then on leaving she has that aside, "myself
apparently drowning her twin brother would be his wife," and the second side of the
• an inveterate drinker, the countess's triangle snaps into place.
kinsman, who is bilking an inept wooer
• the young woman, now disguised as a Sir Toby and the subplot/ 1.3
young page, falls in love with the duke Time to start the subplot, which means
s/he serves, who sends her to woo the dealing with inebriation. Maria is a voice of
woman he loves order, "You must come in earlier o' nights,"
Details to Consider • the steward and the returned fool snipe at but Sir Toby's self-indulgence refuses limits,
• Compare how Orsino begins each other; then the countess finds herself especially when he can get Sir Andrew to pay
1.1 and how he ends it. How not only listening to the page but falling in for the booze. That response sets the tone and
does he take Olivia's "no"? love with him goal for the subplot—no limits! Party on! Until
• Viola does not immediately the party's over… and it seems to be ending
disguise herself; what does Orsino/ 1.1 and 1.4 now when Sir Andrew says he'll leave, but Sir
she really seek? why does It's romantic comedy, so we meet a young Toby talks him out of it. How many things does
she think a disguise will man in love, fairly wallowing in its agony and Sir Toby talk Sir Andrew into or out of during this
afford her that? the effort to get a response from his beloved. play, overriding Andrew's fledgling good sense
• Is Sir Toby just a fun-loving Because he is the local duke and she the local with Toby's unbridled appetites?
guy or is he a mischief countess, this looks like the match their fathers
maker? Is he really Sir would have made—but there are no fathers in Feste and Malvolio/ 1.5
Andrew's friend? Does he this play, no traditional parental figure to block The first half of 1.5 may introduce us to
listen to Maria's counsel? the yearnings of the young. Comedy insists that Olivia, but it actually focuses on the subplot by
• Compare Sir Toby's witty the yearnings meet a challenge, so Shakespeare introducing two more key players in that action,
puns at the top of 1.3 to Sir uses basic romantic geometry—the triangle— Feste and Malvolio, whose values are utterly
Andrew's ineptness with which by the end of 1.5 is complete and the opposed. Feste's first action with Olivia is to call
words. comedy fully underway amid this snarl. her on her emotional trap and start to remedy it
• Why does Orsino think Orsino's unrequited love—or his hobby of by labeling her the fool for grieving her brother's
Cesario, his new page, will sending messengers to Olivia, depending on soul being in heaven. When Malvolio, who enjoys
be the perfect emissary to your view of his passion's earnestness—affects the sobriety of Olivia's grief, belittles Feste, the
woo Olivia for him? his entire behavior. "Will you go hunt, my lord?" conflict ignites; this showdown will end the play
• What has Viola seen in offers him what we assume is a usual activity, as Feste repeats Malvolio's words from 1.5. We
Orsino that has prompted but he filters it through his role as lover. In also see how Sir Toby is barely tolerated in this
her to fall in love with him? production terms, Orsino can seem languid, household, despite his feeling of invulnerability.
Do we understand it? Is it a indulgent, playing at love imagery; the challenge
positive sign or a sign of her is to keep him active enough to be worthy of Viola Olivia/ 1.5
vulnerability? in the long term. Is emotional pining Orsino's Because we know Cesario is on "his" way
• Maria warns Feste, too. If usual behavior or something unusual? By 5.1 to Olivia's, we spend the first part of the scene
she is protective, of what? he's active. waiting for "him" to arrive. When Cesario enters,
How does she negotiate her He also strikes up a deepening mentorship/ we get to know Olivia much better and to feel
loyalty and duty to Olivia friendship with his new page, Cesario. Viola's passion for Orsino working underneath
and her affection for Toby? her duty. Olivia starts to listen and becomes
• Exactly how do Feste and engaged by the page's words; she finds it
Viola/ 1.2 and 1.4
Malvolio get into their hard to let him go. She suddenly decides to
Viola is beset, and that largely describes her
showdown? How are become a wooer herself, seizing an active role
character through the entire play. She begins
Feste's objections to to pursue her new emotion, and the last side
by surviving a shipwreck, and "shipwreck" also
Malvolio different from Sir of the triangle falls in place. Now we have a
describes the love complications she is about
Toby's? genuine love challenge.
to encounter in Illyria. In a strange country and
• Exactly how and when does
grief-stricken by her brother's death, she wants
Olivia stop dismissing
to find refuge; when she apparently cannot do
words from Orsino and start
it with Olivia (ironically), she finds refuge in
listening to Cesario? What
disguise—a decision comparable to Olivia's
happens to her response?
swearing off the world for seven years. Viola tries
 4

by William Shakespeare Studying the Play: Acts Two and Three—Opportunity

If 1.5 creates a triangle, 2.1 immediately Details to Consider
turns it into a potential rectangle and completes • Interstitching: These two acts are a
the stemming of grief that 1.5 began. Sebastian good place to watch Shakespeare's
is alive—and once we have as many young men interstitching—the way he connects scene
"Dost thou think,
as women, there is hope for a happy ending to scene. Scene 1.5 ends with Olivia
because thou art virtuous, and we can enjoy the comic confusions along falling for Cesario and urging, "Fate, show
there shall be no more the way: thy force." One line later as 2.1 begins,
cakes and ale?" • a young man grieves for his lost twin sister Sebastian walks in, a dead ringer for
—Sir Toby, 2.3 and sets off for Orsino's (just as Viola had) Cesario—quick-working Fate indeed.
• Viola realizes from the ring that Olivia has That scene ends with a pursuit based in
fallen in love with Cesario friendship, and 2.2 begins with Malvolio's
• Malvolio scolds the party people, who plan a pursuit of Cesario with the ring, based in
trick to humiliate him and it works perfectly Olivia's sudden love. Now Viola beseeches
The Play's Timeline • Cesario tells Orsino of her "sister's" love not Fate, but Time, to untangle the knots,
Try to establish the play's • Sebastian begins to explore Illyria (but to which the subsequent three acts will do.
timeline. From the shipwreck to protect Antonio he does not go to Orsino's) The next two scenes begin with a desire for
the ending is three months, we • Maria tells Olivia that cross-gartered music and then set the trick on Malvolio
are told. When does the time Malvolio seems crazy, and Olivia believes and send Cesario to Olivia once again.
pass? Which scenes are close it when she sees him; the tricksters decide Once we watch Malvolio "decode" or
to the shipwreck; which are near to lock up Malvolio as a madman "deconstruct" the letter to his advantage in
the end of the time passage? How • Toby convinces Sir Andrew to challenge 2.5, we appreciate Feste's early comment
do you know? Cesario to a duel, but Antonio intervenes, in 3.1, "How quickly the wrong side may
calling Cesario "Sebastian" be turned outward!"
That scene ends with Cesario's leavetaking,
and the next scene opens with Sir Andrew
leaving again, which Sir Toby diverts into
a challenge that will threaten Viola but be
perfect for Sebastian.
• Compare Sir Toby's 2.3 urge to keep
partying to Malvolio's 2.5 ambition and his
urge to keep dreaming of Olivia. How does
the play feed their desires?
• Compare the friendship of Sir Toby with Sir
Andrew in 3.2 (as Sir Toby brags of how
much money he has bilked from him)
with the friendship between Antonio and
Sebastian in 3.3.
• Scene 3.4 is a swinging door scene; almost
every character plays a part by twos and
threes as people enter and exit. We can
The imbibing
compare the 3.2 scene between Olivia and
midnight revelers
Cesario with this one and notice that Olivia
taunt and tease
finds herself in two different kinds of love
Malvolio as he tries
scene in 3.4, one with Malvolio where she
to maintain order
is wooed unawares, and one with Cesario,
and quiet in the
where she woos. Cesario, beset by Olivia,
household (Sir John
is then beset by Sir Andrew (supposedly).
Gilbert)
• The name "Sebastian" ends the act for
Viola, and Sebastian himself opens Act 4.
 5

by William Shakespeare Studying the Play: Acts Four and Five—Revelations

Act Four opens with everyone at Olivia's Details to Watch
meeting Sebastian instead of Cesario, and the • Act 4 begins to end the plot's jokes because
tangle that Viola's disguise has caused snarls of Sebastian's presence with Olivia and
into a new knot, but one that holds more promise her displeasure with her cousin Toby,
for the ending. Sebastian asks if he is mad just which limits how far he is willing to torment
before we meet Malvolio locked away for being Malvolio. How does the action start to spin
mad, then Sebastian, deciding he's not mad, out of control and how does it begin to spin
opens 4.3. Since 4.3 ends with an imminent back toward control and order in Act 4?
betrothal, 5.1 must bring the action to its eye- • Note that Feste opens 5.1 by claiming he is
opening conclusion. "better for my foes and the worse for my
"One face, one voice, The last scene deals with many subsets of friends" because "[my friends] praise me,
one habit, and two characters—Orsino and Olivia, arrested Antonio, and make an ass of me. Now my foes tell
persons, the priest, Sir Andrew and Sir Toby, Sebastian me plainly I am an ass…." How do the
and Viola, and lastly Malvolio confronting friendships in the play work out in Act 5
A natural perspective, and how many fit Feste's claim?
Olivia, then Feste. While most of the suitors are
that is and is not." • Feste then tries to beg a second coin by
excluded from the marital joy of the conclusion,
—Orsino, 5.1 talking of "double-dealing." How does this
Malvolio is humiliated in public. But so is Orsino,
for a time, when Olivia says she has married image fit with Shakespeare's "double-
Cesario. The happy ending comes after repeated dealing" in the play, the twins getting
bursts of emotional distress for the principals closer to reunion?
and for Malvolio and Sir Andrew, so we feel • Impossible truths—Orsino hears Antonio's
the pull of reality as well as the bubble of bliss. claim to have spent the past three months
with Cesario and then senses Olivia's
obvious preference for Cesario. Olivia
hears Cesario, her betrothed, pledge
loyalty to Orsino. Everyone is in an
emotional tizzy, all centered on Cesario.
Sir Andrew adds to the confusion by
saying Cesario just struck him and Sir
Toby, so that Olivia asks, "Who hath made
this havoc with them?" Into this whirlwind
steps Sebastian, the moment we've been
waiting for since 2.1.
• Antonio intuitively expresses the truth
without realizing it: "An apple cleft in two is
not more twin / Than these two creatures."
• Feste has had Malvolio's letter all day and
only now delivers it.
The confusions • Malvolio was suckered by a letter; now he
and deceptions writes his own letter to Olivia, in which he
in the plot lines chastizes her for neglect and inducing his
set up a series of recent behavior: "I leave my duty a little
"oops" moments
unthought of, and speak out of my injury."
near the end—
here Sir Andrew
How many people have spoken so in the
meets Sebastian, course of this and recent scenes?
not Cesario: oops! • Maria's trick letter reveals more "double-
dealing," her writing being a "twin" to
Olivia's, as Malvolio learns. Everyone is
part of the play's "double-dealing."
• Is Malvolio the only one irked enough to
threaten revenge in 5.1? How much
vengeful impulse has the play had? What
comes of it now?
• How should we interpret Feste's last song?
What does it say about the play and us?
 6

by William Shakespeare
Why It's Called "Twelfth Night" and What That Tells Us
The title offers the central metaphor for who in 1652 declared Christmas celebrations
the play's action and themes. Twelfth Night illegal and impious, and the Industrial Revolution,
refers to the last night of the traditional Twelve which shifted much of the rural population to
Days of Christmas, January 6, the Feast of the cities, managed to supplant the festivity.
the Epiphany, the time the The Christmas tradition nearly died out until
three wise men arrived in Charles Dickens popularized a milder domestic
Bethlehem. In England, this celebration dedicated to family and concern for
holiday was associated with the poor in A Christmas Carol (1843).
drinking, noise, revelry, feasting, So the title highlights important themes and,
dancing, cross-dressing, and in fact, the entire mood of frivolity and holiday so
topsy-turvy authority governed essential to the play. The play’s subtitle, “What
by a Lord of Misrule. You Will,” provides more permission to indulge
For over a thousand years, in romance, given the Renaissance association
this celebration was a communal of the subtitle's will with sexual urges, which
event when the entire estate— also tells us something about the impulses
lord, lady, and servant, both in the play. In spirit, the title is much like the
gentry and commons—gathered titles of his previous two romantic comedies,
Above, "Phiz" Browne's version
in midwinter to party. Only the As You Like It and Much Ado about Nothing,
of a real 19th-century Twelfth combined influence of Puritan Oliver Cromwell, suggestively upbeat.
Night party.

A History of Christmas Celebration

Christmas Emerges
•2nd century: despite the fact that it overlapped with the wild Roman new year festival,
Saturnalia, church fathers proclaim Christmas a holy day
•597: Pope Gregory sends a missionary team led by St. Augustine of Canterbury, as he was
“Many of the existing later known, to convert the Anglo-Saxons, in part by making their local winter feast a Christian
customs—such as the festival. This action incorporated Yule, the Saxon feast for the return of the Sun (which involved
wassailing of apple trees and burning a huge log), into Christmas celebrations and gave a holiday role to holly (used in
the revelries associated with pagan divination), mistletoe (which the Druids believed had mystical and medicinal qualities),
Twelfth Night—were blatantly and evergreens
raucous and ribald. Villagers •878: Alfred the Great orders the full twelve days of Christmas to be celebrated throughout
England
let their hair down, got
Celebrating Christmas in the Middle Ages and Renaissance
blind drunk, and threatened •1170: Henry II welcomes the season with plays, masques, and spectacles; the clergy promotes
temporary social disorder. instruction and entertainment with spiritually focused plays
Men dressed up as women •13th century: Henry III establishes the custom of giving food to the poor during the Twelve Days
and women as men; fools of Christmas. He also extends the court feasting, a customary royal extravagance; he has 600
were made kings.” oxen slaughtered for a holiday banquet
—Christmas Past The Puritan Reaction
(1988) •16th/17th century: Puritans attack the customs for celebrating Christmas as pagan superstitions
and consider the “Saturnalian” traditions blasphemous
•1647: Puritan-dominated Parliament ordains that Christmas may not be celebrated with the other
holy days
•1652: Parliament declares “no observance shall be had of the five and twentieth day of
December, commonly called Christmas day; nor any solemnity used or exercised in churches
upon that day in respect thereof”
•1660: with the restoration of Charles II to the throne, some old traditions return; through the 18th
and early 19th centuries, however, increasing urbanization prevents the rural holidays from
regaining their former place
• 1843: Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol pubished
• late 20th century: stores begin opening on Christmas Day for after-Christmas sales
 7

by William Shakespeare The Lord of Misrule and the Feast of Fools

Teaching the Play Under the Tudor monarchs, the court and The Feast of Fools was part of the New
certain colleges at Oxford often appointed a Year celebrations in cathedrals and churches
special officer known as the Lord of Misrule to across Europe during the Middle Ages when
oversee the Christmas revels. He also the lesser officials and minor clergy claimed the
held sway in the London law school at offices of their superiors and burlesqued their
the Inns of Court until well into the 17th functions. A procession headed by a “king” on
century. Usurping all other authority, he a donkey began the festivities, which extended
commanded games and entertainments into skits, satiric church services, and general
and fostered mischief—“what you will.” mayhem. Such practices disappeared in the
Most of his activity was based on an church during the 14th century and transferred
even older clerical tradition called the to secular holiday traditions.
Feast of Fools.

Illustrations by Sir John Gilbert:

Above, laughing at Sir Andrew's letter
after setting him up to write it, and
right, three versions of misrule in
Twelfth Night—Feste, the knowing
purveyor of wit, the fun that also Misrule and Folly in the Play
shows "rule"; Sir Toby, the play's Lord takes the forthright approach and finally goes
of Misrule in his inebriated state, and In Twelfth Night, the subplot definitely
to see Olivia to protest his love; Toby shows Sir
his companion in drink and his dupe usurps the main plot through the middle of the
Andrew another side of his inebriation and, in
in all else, Sir Andrew. play, and misrule fittingly describes its antics. In
vino veritas, a harsh, unvarnished truth.
a world beset by young love, loss, and intense
emotion, Sir Toby cares only for drink, protesting As the play’s fool, Feste might be considered
that “care’s an enemy to life.” Olivia is too much the center of folly, but Feste is a professional,
in love to pay close attention to Toby’s behavior, skilled in wordplay and wit, and is actually
The "Puritan" in the Play so the plot against Malvolio runs its full course, nobody’s fool. A person of insight and judgment,
Renaisssance religious and so might the mock duel between Sir Andrew a skilled mimic, and a hearty spirit, Feste is not
politics pits Puritan piety against and Cesario did Antonio not interrupt, or Toby's one to meddle with, as Malvolio learns to his
traditional festivity, as can be assault on Sebastian before Olivia appears. shame. Unlike the others, Feste controls his
seen at the climax of act 2, scene folly, marshals it like a weapon, uses it to heal,
As we meet Sir Toby, he is protesting Maria’s
3 of Twelfth Night: to entertain, or to barb.
attempts to “confine” him “within the modest
Malvolio: My masters, are you limits of order.” At the moment, Sir Toby refuses
mad? Or what are you? to be confined, made modest, or ordered. By The Puritan View
Have you no wit, manners, the end of the comedy he has agreed to marry The Puritans reacted against the neo-
nor honesty but to gabble Maria, an action which promises at last to bring Catholicism of the newly formed Anglican
like tinkers at this time of some “modest limit” to his excesses. Until then, Church (Church of England) after the English
night?… however, he abuses Sir Andrew’s guileless Reformation in the 1530s. They wanted simpler,
Toby: Dost thou think because gullibility, soaks the poor, hapless knight for plainer religious observances, less pomp, and
thou art virtuous there shall money, and abuses him for his own amusement. fewer icons, including plain glass rather than
be no more cakes and Toby is undoubtedly Twelfth Night’s Lord of stained glass in churches. After 1642 Oliver
ale?… Misrule, but in a way so is Orsino. The duke lets Cromwell (1599-1658) led the Puritan military
Maria (referring to Malvolio): the idea of love overrun his life; it takes him to and political forces to dominance over the
Marry, sir, sometimes he is a excess just as drink does Sir Toby. He is far more crown and aristocracy for almost twenty years
kind of puritan. benign than Toby, but in the last scene they both in the mid-seventeenth century and himself
have run their emotions or scams to the limit, ruled England from 1649 (when Charles I was
and both know a reckoning is in order. Orsino beheaded) until his own death in 1658.

The Structure of Twelfth Night

Main plot: 1.1 1.2 1.4 1.5 2.1 2.2 2.4 3.1 3.3 3.4 4.1 4.3 5.1
Subplot: 1.3 [1.5] 2.3 2.5 3.2 3.4 4.1 4.2 5.1
v
Viola/Sebastian swap starts
 8

by William Shakespeare “O spirit of Love, how quick and fresh art thou”
Love-Sick Orsino How the Love “Plague” Spreads
Teaching the Play
Orsino opens the play with one of Watch how the love infection spreads: Viola
Shakespeare’s oft-quoted phrases. He is in love. catches it as soon as she joins Orsino's court,
He is in an agony of emotion—for the onset of for she falls in love with him within three days.
love turns us all into adolescents, regardless • Wooing Olivia in Orsino’s name, she uses
of age—and he is consequently unstable. He comparable images of divinity for his
How Shakespeare
sets both the tone and the intensity level of “adorations,” and mentions his groans and
Complicates the Love Plot
feeling in this play, but he is far from the only sighs
1) lovesick character. Watch how Orsino's kind of • She confesses to Feste in 3.1 that she is
lovesickness seems to sweep like an epidemic “almost sick” for a beard, “though I would
through the action, or, ­to use the play's imagery­, not have it grow on my chin.”
like madness or a binge. • When Orsino tries to paint a woman’s love
Orsino Olivia
• Read Orsino's entire first sentence (ending as weaker than his, she protests in near
with "and so die") to see how the initial confession about her father’s daughter
phrase twists in meaning. and her silent love, “smiling at grief.” They
• Orsino describes his love in 1.4 as debate who can love more strongly, man
2) comprised of faith and woes and himself or woman, and Viola gets the last word.
as best when solitary. • Her 5.1 proclamation of love is again self-
• In 2.4 he adds to his list of love traits sacrificing, “I,…to do you rest, a thousand
Olivia being “unstaid and skittish” in everything deaths would die,” and absolute, “more
except affection and confesses that men’s than I love these eyes, more than my life.”
fancies are “more giddy and unfirm, / More
longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn, / Olivia catches the sickness from Viola in
Than women’s are.” Yet he professes his 1.5, as she recognizes: “Even so quickly may
Orsino Cesario/ own steadfastness to Olivia. one catch the plague?”
Viola • Feste sings of unrequited love, “I am slain • She feels herself in the hands of Fate, as
by a fair cruel maid,” feeding Orsino’s self- Sebastian does in the opening of the next
image, but also calls Orsino’s mind “a very scene, 2.1, and Viola in the ring scene,
3) opal” of changeability. 2.2, immediately afterward.
• By 5.1 Orsino is driven to verbal extremes: • Yet Olivia swaps roles with Cesario,
his adoration of Olivia borders on the becoming the wooer and thus parallel to
Olivia religious (or idolatrous), claiming that “My Orsino; his “go to her” becomes her “come
soul the faithfull’st off’rings have breathed to me again.”
out / That e’er devotion tendered!” so • By 3.4 she calls Cesario’s heart a “heart
Orsino Malvolio that her denial of such fidelity renders of stone” as Orsino will later call her
her “marble-breasted” in his eyes; then own, and she offers gifts just as Orsino
his jealousy renders him murderous. Like does. She is sick as long as her love is
Orlando in As You Like It, he has loved unanswered; once Sebastian appears,
alone as long as he can, and now he can love leads to a plighted troth.
Cesario/ Sir
live no more by thinking—hence his trip to
Viola Andrew
Olivia’s house.

Sebastian The Infected Subplot

A number of other characters also speak the when the madness passes, when the inebriants
language of love or attempt it, for both Sir Andrew sober up, when the disease is cured by requited
and Malvolio try to woo Olivia. Sir Andrew’s love is the tale of the play's fifth act.
love talk is distinguished by its ineptitude. He Even Antonio’s passionate dedication to
is envious of Cesario’s phrases such as “rain Sebastian uses love rhetoric, because the male
odors”: “I’ll get ’em all three all ready.” He wants friendship bond in the Renaissance was more
to be eloquent, but he has slender means. forthright and emotional than today's. With so
Malvolio, on the other hand—though mostly many arranged marriages in the Renaissance,
“sick of self-love,” as Maria notes—believes choosing a friend was often the only way a man
Olivia is wooing him and abandons himself to could have a "soul mate."
his ambition to his pride’s peril. What happens
 9

by William Shakespeare Courtly Love Imagery—How Renaissance Lovers Speak

In the 1520s when Sir Thomas Wyatt began "Whoso List to Hunt" by Sir Thomas Wyatt
Teaching the Play's Poetry
translating Petrarch’s love sonnets into English,
he inspired a poetic outpouring that would Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
change English poetry. Not only did almost But as for me, alas, I may no more.
every English poet start exploring the sonnet The vain travail hath wearied me so sore
form, often writing entire sonnet cycles, but I am of them that farthest cometh behind.
poets adopted Petrarch's courtly love imagery: Yet may I, by no means, my wearied mind
the ardent lover—eager, fevered or dying for Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore,
love, beseeching the beloved as if she were a Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
star or a hart/deer (homonyms of “heart” and Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.
“dear”), her beauty a combination of roses and Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
alabaster—pleaded that she take pity on him, As well as I, may spend his time in vain.
which she would only do if his love were pure And graven with diamonds in letters plain
and true, not worldly or physical. There is written, her fair neck round about,
Orsino is sick with love, his contradictory “Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am,
moods reflecting the paradoxes of his passionate And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.”
state, as shown in Wyatt’s sonnet, “I Find (Noli me tangere= do not touch me)
No Peace," which translates and adapts the
common Petrarchan element, the paradox, as Shakespeare’s sonnets offer us views of the
the ideal expression for the contradictory feelings moral aspect of love sickness:
a lover may experience:
"Sonnet 147" by William Shakespeare
"I Find No Peace" by Sir Thomas Wyatt
My love is as a fever, longing still
I find no peace and all my war is done, For that which longer nurseth the disease,
I fear and hope, I burn and freeze like ice, Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
"I am slain by a fair, cruel I fly above the wind, yet can I not arise, Th’ uncertain sickly appetite to please.
And naught I have and all the world I seize My reason, the physician to my love,
maid" on;
—song Orsino Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
That looseth nor locketh holdeth me in Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
requests in 4.1
prison, Desire is death, which physic did except.
And holdeth me not; yet can I [e]scape Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
nowise; And frantic mad with evermore unrest;
Nor letteth me live nor die at my devise, My thoughts and my discourse as madmen’s
And yet of death it giveth me occasion. are,
Without eyen I see; and without tongue I At random from the truth vainly expressed;
plain; (plain=complain) For I have sworn thee fair, and thought
I desire to perish, and yet I ask health; thee bright,
I love another, and thus I hate myself; Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
I feed me in sorrow, and laugh in all my pain.
Likewise displeaseth me both death and life, Questions
And my delight is causer of this strife. • Does Wyatt's description of love match
Orsino’s feelings? Is love always an
Wyatt also uses the hunt image with the entirely pleasant emotion?
deer/dear pun (a hind is a female deer) in another • Most of the standard paradoxes from
sonnet adapting Petrarch, a lament Wyatt wrote Petrarch are in Wyatt's "I Find No Peace."
after King Henry VIII started pursuing Wyatt's What are they? Are they in the play?
beloved, Anne Boleyn: • How many themes used in the love
language and love sick imagery in Twelfth
Night appear in “Sonnet 147”? How is the
sonnet different from the love sick states in
Twelfth Night?
• How does "Sonnet 147" shift from focus on
the lover to focus on the beloved? What is
the nature of each focus?
 10

by William Shakespeare
Twelfth Night's Courtly Love Imagery
Orsino’s love talk is full of Petrarchan courtly Olivia: How does he love me?
love images and phrases, as in his early use of Cesario: With adorations, fertile tears,
Teaching the Play's Poetry the hart/heart image, here a classical Actaeon With groans that thunder love, with sighs
image, in 1.1: of fire.
O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first Olivia: … But yet I cannot love him;
Methought she purg’d the air of pestilence; He might have took his answer long ago.
That instant was I turn’d into a hart, Cesario: If I did love you in my master's
And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, flame,
E’er since pursue me. (1.1.19-23) With such a suff'ring, such a deadly life,
Thus, he feels devoured by his desire. In your denial I would find no sense,
Three voices speak of love in 1.5: Olivia I would not understand it.
with disdain and then two voices cross-pleading Olivia: Why, what would you?
for love. Cesario begins the scene speaking for Cesario: Make me a willow cabin at your
Orsino with his Petrarchan intensity; then— gate,
perhaps triggered by Olivia's personal question And call upon my soul within the house;
"Why, what would you?"—Cesario seems to Write loyal cantons of contemned love,
respond with more of Viola's sensibility, which And sing them loud even in the dead of
is also in love. night;
Halloo your name to the reverberate hills,
Does Cesario indeed speak with two
And make the babbling gossip of the air
different sensibilities, one the standard rhetoric
Cry out 'Olivia!' O, you should not rest
and the other individual and passionate? Why
Between the elements of air and earth,
does Orsino's rhetoric fail to move Olivia but
But you should pity me.
Cesario/Viola's seem to succeed?
Olivia: You might do much.…
Consider the shift in the dialogue: (1.5.258-260, 266-280)
Olivia unveiling at Cesario's ("Willow" is an image for unrequited love. A
request. Is being"veiled" emotionally "canton" is a song. "Pity" means to answer the
a widespread aspect of the play?
Do characters "unveil" their feelings
Courtly Friendship Poetry offered love.)
along the way? Is this action also
Shakespeare's 154 sonnets famously Watch how "Sonnet #20" plays with the
an image?
include a number written to a young man, urging idea of friendship and clearly distinguishes it
him to marry. The friend takes the rhetorical place from erotic love (and also watch the stereotype
of the love object, the beloved, and the strong of woman's fickleness here):
love is not erotic but amicable. One Renaissance
"Sonnet 20"
"Thou know'st no less but meaning of the word "love" (as in "o my love") is
A woman's face with Nature's own hand
all. I have unclasped "friend" and is so annotated in his plays.
painted
To thee the book even of Hast thou, the master-mistress of my
"Sonnet 30"
my secret soul." When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
passion;
—Orsino to Cesario, 1.4 A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
I summon up remembrance of things past,
With shifting change, as is false women's
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
fashion;
And with old woes new wail my dear time's
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in
waste.
rolling,
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
For precious friends hid in death's dateless
A man in hue, all hues in his controlling,
night,
Which steals men's eyes and women's souls
And weep afresh love's long since canceled
amazeth.
woe,
And for a woman wert thou first created,
And moan th' expense of many a vanished
Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
sight.
And by addition me of thee defeated,
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
But since she pricked thee out for
The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
women's pleasure,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
Mine be thy love and thy love's use their
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
treasure.
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
 11

by William Shakespeare The Importance of Language in Courtly Wooing

The courtly genre of love sonnet was, by Wooing Then and Now: Grades 11-12
definition, "courtly"—a way of strutting one's • Are display and eloquence part of wooing
Teaching the Play's Poetry eloquence, like a peacock his feathers. That is today? What are the things to say to get
why so many variations were wrung upon the the attention of someone special or to
conventional images and rhetorical stances—it attract some definite interest from that
was a way of displaying one's intellectual person?
and verbal prowess. Twelfth Night, with its • What are the rhetorical stances of the
array of wooers, also shows off a variety of modern wooing world? What phrases,
Shakespeare's Sir Andrew verbal styles, and part of its humor is in the ideas, images are used? Do males and
For all the fun we can have incompetence of a wooer such as Sir Andrew, females use the same strategies and
with Sir Andrew's inabilities to whose cluelessness and verbal poverty let us phrases? If not, how are they different?
woo, he is still a Shakespeare appreciate Viola/Cesario's ready invention and Why?
character, and that means he skill all the more. Make a list of how many times • Are there Sir Andrews in our world? What
is more than two-dimensional. and ways Sir Andrew goes verbally astray—we shows that someone is clueless in his or
Deep in his cups, as Sir Toby can learn the importance of language facility her wooing? Make a Top Ten List of what
brags that Maria adores him, by its absence. not to say.
Andrew responds, "I was adored We may think that Sir Andrew is just the butt • Compare the attitude of the female speaker
once too." That comment alone of Sir Toby's jests, but his type was apparently in the Campion's "Think'st Thou to Seduce
gives him a roundness and life prevalent in the Renaissance, more show than Me" below left with the male speaker's
we might not otherwise consider. sense. Poet Michael Drayton begins a sonnet attitude in these two stanzas of another
Also, by the time Sir Toby by commenting, "How many paltry, foolish, Campion poem. How true is each?
tells him off in 5.1, we may painted things, / That now in coaches trouble I care not for these ladies that must be wooed and
actually feel sorry for Sir Andrew, every street, / Shall be forgotten, whom no prayed.
whose behavior was mostly at the Give me kind Amaryllis, the wanton country maid.
poet sings, / Ere they be well wrapped in their Nature art disdaineth; her beauty is her own,
behest of the very "friend" who winding sheet?" Ben Jonson savages a lord Who when we court and kiss, she cries "Forsooth,
now scorns him. in "On Something That Walks Somewhere" let go!"
by opening, "At court I met it, in clothes brave But when we come where comfort is, she never will
enough / To be a courtier…." [the "it" being a say no.
singular jab].
If I love Amaryllis, she gives me fruit and flowers;
Below see Thomas Campion's poem written
But if we love these ladies, we must give golden
in the medieval form of fourteeners (which later showers.
broke down into our 8/6 ballad meter) for a female Give them gold that sell love, give me the nutbrown
speaker's response to such a wooer (and realize lass,
how rare such a female persona is in this courtly Who when we court and kiss, she cries "Forsooth,
tradition and how powerfully Shakespeare's let go!"
women speak throughout his plays): But when we come where comfort is, she never will
say no.

"Think'st Thou to Seduce Me Then" by Thomas Campion

Think'st thou to seduce me then with words that have no meaning?

Parrots so can learn to prate, our speech by pieces gleaning;
Nurses teach their children so about the time of weaning.

Learn to speak first, then to woo; to wooing much pertaineth;

He that courts us, wanting art, soon falters when he feigneth,
Looks asquint on his discourse, and smiles when he complaineth.
Another wooer,
Malvolio, in yellow display Skillful anglers hide their hooks, fit baits for every season;
before amazed Olivia; But with crooked pins fish thou, as babes do that want reason:
illustration by Sir John Gilbert Gudgeons only can be caught with such poor tricks of treason. gudgeon = small fish

Ruth forgive me, if I erred from human heart's compassion, ruth = pity
When I laughed sometimes too much to see thy foolish fashion;
But, alas, who less could do that found so good occasion?
 12

by William Shakespeare
Considering the Subtitle—What You Will
Few of Shakespeare's plays have subtitles, Here Shakespeare puns on the many
so we had best pay attention when he uses one, Renaissance meanings of the word will, which
as with Twelfth Night, or What You Will. Reading include wish, sexual desire, erogenous zones,
the subtitle from a 21st-century perspective, and his own name. How many shadings are
we assume it means "what you want" or "what there now in the play’s subtitle? While key nouns
you decide to make happen," or perhaps even are often capitalized in the Renaissance, what
"whatever." The word "will" had more denotations does Shakespeare gain by capitalizing "Will"
in the Renaissance, however, as a quick visit in the sonnet? Perhaps the subtitle seems to
to the Oxford English Dictionary (the OED, the be more "what you desire," and we are alerted
historical dictionary of English word meaning) to watch that element in the play's motivations
will reveal. and schemes.
Watch how Shakespeare knowingly uses
the word in this sonnet: ACTIVITY—Exploring Poems
• Compare the sea/water imagery in "Sonnet
"Sonnet 135" 135" to Orsino's use of the sea/water image in
Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will, 1.1 and also consider the shipwreck in 1.2.
And Will to boot, and Will in overplus; • Compare Shakespeare's "Sonnet 135"
More than enough am I that vex thee still, with some Renaissance love arguments, poems
To thy sweet will making addition thus. using persuason to gain love, often physical love,
Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious, such as Sidney's "Fourth Song" in Astrophil and
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine? Stella or Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to
Shall will in others seem right gracious, His Love" and Raleigh's "The Nymph's Reply to
And in my will no fair acceptance shine? the Shepherd." How is desire viewed and used
The sea, all water, yet receives rain still, in these poems? How is the beloved portrayed
And in abundance addeth to his store, in these poems?
So thou being rich in Will add to thy Will
Elizabethan miniature of "Young One will of mine to make thy large Will
Man among Roses" by Nicholas more.
Hilliard—often used as inspiration Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill;
for Orsino or Viola in production Think all but one, and me in that one Will.

"I would you were as I

would have you be."
—Olivia, 3.1

"Olivia" by Edmund Blair Leighton (1888)

In 1.5 Olivia's unveiling at Cesario's request suggests
her first step toward emotional re-engagement with life
and her particular interest in the young page
 13

by William Shakespeare Folly, Drunkenness, and Madness

Watching her kinsman Sir Toby reel into
1.5, already half-drunk early in the morning,
Teaching the Play's Imagery “Many peoples have been used to
Olivia asks Feste, “What’s a drunken man like,
fool?” and Feste quips, “Like a drowned man, observe an annual period of license, when
a fool, and a madman.” Feste’s response customary restraints of law and morality are
aptly describes degrees of inebriation, folly thrown aside, when the whole population
maddened to drowning, but the wise fool also give themselves up to extravagant mirth
describes several of the crucial characters and
and jollity, and when the darker passions
characterizations in the play.
find a vent which would never be allowed
A Drowned Man
them in the more staid and sober course
Twelfth Night has two nearly drowned men,
Sebastian and the “man” Cesario (Viola). This
of ordinary life.”
presumed drowning numbs them with grief and —Sir James Frazer,
yearning for their lost twin. But the drowning most The Golden Bough
often portrayed is not a drenching in the sea but
in booze. Sir Toby has no cares and does not
care—he does not care whom he uses, whom
An antique one-quart tankard, he hurts, or, for much of the play, even what the A Fool
the size Sir Toby might prefer Much of the action Sir Toby drives is gulling,
consequences of his reveling may be. His is a
self-centered ethic: a foolish man such as Sir the Renaissance term for cheating or making a
Andrew is meant to be used by an unscrupulous fool of someone, and in the world of the subplot,
"Does not our lives and self-indulgent knight such as Sir Toby. The one is either a gull or a guller. Sir Andrew is a gull,
consist of the four clever prey on the foolish. and for a time in 3.4 so is Viola before Antonio
saves her from the duel. Sir Toby, Maria, Fabian,
elements?" and Feste are all gullers—merry tricksters who
"Faith, so they assume they have a right to expose and profit
say, but I from others’ follies. Feste, of course, can be
think it rather expected to do so; it is his profession. Sir Toby
consists of is prompted by greed to dupe Sir Andrew, and
all are driven by spite to revenge themselves on
eating and Malvolio and his puritanical pride. The revenge
drinking." plot, born of a night’s partying, becomes itself a
—Sir Toby and kind of inebriating activity madly pursued.
Sir Andrew, 2.3 And a Madman
Malvolio, on the receiving end of their
plot, has his own folly and becomes giddy with
his hopes of wedding Olivia and lording over
everyone. His self-inebriating ambition turns
him into a madman in the eyes of others, for
his smiling and yellow stockings are remarkably
out of character and decorum, and Olivia can
make no sense of the phrases he quotes her
from Maria's letter.
In the spirit of
Twelfth Night, Sir Questions
Toby keeps the party • Is the subplot indeed made up of "the
going into the night darker passions," as Frazer describes? What
(Robert Chambers, might they be and how do they proceed?
1869) • How does the effect of drinking progress
from inebriation to drunkenness? How do people
behave after one drink? after three drinks?
after five drinks? Do we see this progression
in the play, especially the subplot's attitudes
and actions?
 14

by William Shakespeare More Madness

When the fake letter convinces him that parlance. Malvolio does not quite learn from
Teaching the Play's Poetry Olivia loves him, Malvolio tellingly claims, “I his incarceration, but he is more sober and
have limed her.” Lime was used to catch birds, less illusioned when he finally confronts Olivia
and his phrase places him firmly in the camp in act five, when he feels the sting of his pride
of the would-be gullers: he is willing to fool, to and folly publicly displayed and promises his
trap, to ensnare for own revenge in return.
his own gain. But Drink inebriates, pride and folly inebriate,
since Malvolio is and throughout Twelfth Night love also
also being preyed inebriates. The subplot actions and issues reflect
upon by Maria’s and illuminate the main plot’s action. Orsino is
trick, his own folly certainly drunk with love; Olivia soon joins him.
is revealed, a Both recognize the folly of their states but do not
folly the tricksters care; both are driven nearly mad by unrequited
label and treat love; and only when the presumedly drowned
as madness. In youths, Sebastian and Viola, are recognized do
confining Malvolio the aristocrats finally drown their foolish passion
like a madman, in the discovery of true love. The very idea of
they force him Twelfth Night promises intense disruption and
to insist on his indulgence, then a return to order, and the play
sanity, and the fulfills that promise.
scene works as a
version of “Are you
crazy? Get real,
man” in modern

Maria baits the trap

(Sir John Gilbert) Foolishness vs. Foolery: Wise Fools in Shakespeare
Amid all the inebriation in Twelfth Night, performing the rustic clown, the kind of character
amid all the madness and folly, one character Shakespeare created in Bottom and Dogberry
seems to have his head on straight, to see what and Launce (in Two Gentlemen of Verona)
is and to comment reliably—Feste, the only and Launcelot Gobbo. The next comedian
Cesario: Art not thou the character labeled a fool. In the Renaissance, the company hired had very different talents,
Lady Olivia's fool? being a fool was a profession, something like and consequently, the clown roles changed to
Feste: No indeed sir. a political stand-up comic in our world. Many professional fool roles to showcase the skills of
kings and aristocrats kept a fool about the Robert Armin. Feste, like Armin who first played
The Lady Olivia has court as an entertainer, and the fool's lot, as is the role, is a singer and a wit. His songs carefully
no folly. She will keep made very clear in King Lear, was not without comment on the mood and truth of situations,
no fool, sir, till she be its perils. Lear's fool is beaten and threatened and his banter
married.… I am indeed for his loyalty and astute insights. Feste faces reveals his insight
not her fool but her no such vehement threat, but Maria suggests into character and
that since his “folly” has been absent, he may human nature.
corrupter of words. lose his employment. Of course, the plot of the Feste is not foolish;
—3.1 play shows instead that folly spreads throughout foolery is just what
Illyria. The presence of a professional fool simply he gets paid to do.
alerts us to watch for folly everywhere else.
In the late 1590s, Shakespeare’s company,
the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, lost their great Robert Armin,
comic actor, Will Kempe. He was gifted at the actor who
originated the
role of Feste
for the Lord
Chamberlain's
Company
 15

by William Shakespeare The Songs: “If Music Be the Food of Love, Play On…”
In Shakespeare’s practice, comedy is also The next scene, 2.4, has Feste sing at
The Play's Songs melody, for many of his comedies are filled with Orsino’s request, and the fool fits the duke's
songs. Feste may be a jester and professional emotional state—and Viola/Cesario’s—very
fool, but he is also a singer, and—as is true of aptly:
all Shakespeare’s songs—the lyrics are crafted “Come Away, Death”
for their dramatic moment. Come away, come away, death,
Feste’s first song, sung in 2.3 when Sir Toby And in sad cypress let me be laid.
Malvolio: "Is there no
and Sir Andrew request a tune, is a carpe diem Fly away, fly away, breath,
respect of place, theme relevant to their hedonistic way of life and I am slain by a fair cruel maid;
persons, nor time in indicative of the play's larger action: My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
you? “O Mistress Mine” O prepare it.
Sir Toby: We did keep O mistress mine, where are My part of death no one so true
time, sir, in our you roaming? Did share it.
O stay and hear, your true
catches. Sneck up." love’s coming, Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
—2.3 That can sing both high and On my black coffin let there be strown;
low. Not a friend, not a friend greet
Trip no further, pretty sweeting; My poor corpse, where my bones
Journeys end in lovers meeting, shall be thrown:
And the Music Every wise man’s son doth know. A thousand thousand sighs to save,
Period tunes for much of Lay me, O where
the music in 2.3 survives, and What is love? ’Tis not hereafter; Sad true lover never find my grave,
music close to the period exists Present mirth hath present laughter; To weep there.
for several other songs in the play, What’s to come is still unsure.
although "Come away, death" In delay there lies no plenty, The sense of utter dedication and utter
has no extant melody earlier Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty; despair comments on both characters’ loves
than 1741. Youth’s a stuff will not endure. and also on the posturing of Orsino’s passion,
The Oxford edition of the which indulges his emotion of being "slain" by
play has an appendix complete The song captures the yearning of youth and love, while we watch Viola live it and literally
with musical arrangements. the longing for immediate gratification and love offer her life in 5.1.
at any age. Almost all the play’s characters are The songs with which Feste teases Malvolio
bound up in the emotions expressed by this song. in his “madman” scene, 4.2, both comment
It is followed by the three-part catch, “Hold Thy truthfully on his love delusions:
Peace,” an idea Hey, Robin, jolly Robin,
which is precisely
Tell me how thy lady does.
what the revelers
refuse to do and My lady is unkind, perdy.
which their noise Alas, why is she so?
will bring Malvolio She loves another—
in to enforce. This lyric states the truth that Malvolio’s pride
has obscured, Olivia (his lady) loves another,
and Feste’s exit verse, “I am gone, sir, / And
anon, sir / I'll be with you again, / In a trice /
Like to the old Vice, / Your need to sustain…,”
also speaks truly.
Feste’s final lyric closes the play with a
wistful, almost bittersweet sense of the real
world that maturity and romance—and the
audience—must now re-enter:
When that I was and-a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
The mummers' tradition combines For the rain it raineth every day.…
disguise, music, and begging
 16

by William Shakespeare Boys Playing Girls Disguised as Boys

For a young boy in the 1590s, being an romantic comedies. After this play, his comedy
apprentice with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men not moves to tragicomedy and eventually to
only meant that he got to study the art and craft the adventure-and-reunion plays known as
of acting by living with a professional actor and romances, where in Cymbeline Imogen again
working with him, but it also meant getting to must disguise herself as a boy.
perform some of the finest female roles ever Viola’s Experience
written. The irony that great women’s roles Viola takes her disguise for protection
were written for and played by pre-pubescent in Illyria when she finds herself alone and
boys is not lost on modern actresses nor on shipwrecked there and also as a mourning
critics of Twelfth Night. tribute to her drowned twin, Sebastian. She no
In many of his comedies, Shakespeare sooner puts the disguise into play, however,
used the male identity of his female characters than it traps her, as it does all of Shakespeare’s
as an “in” joke with his audience, shifting cross-dressing heroines, for she finds herself
the girls into male disguise and out again as desperately in love with Orsino. Not only is he
necessity demanded. Julia in Two Gentlemen is love with someone else, but he doesn’t even
of Verona, Portia and Nerissa in The Merchant know she’s a woman. Nonetheless, Orsino is
of Venice, Rosalind in As You Like It, and of drawn to Cesario as the one person with whom
At the Globe in London, they course Viola in Twelfth Night all adopt a male he can discuss love meaningfully.
often perform "original practices" disguise. Viola is the last in this line, just as
Shakespeare, which includes an
Twelfth Night is the last of Shakespeare’s
all-male cast. In their 2002 Twelfth "Fortune forbid my outside have not
Night, artistic director Mark Rylance
played Olivia in period white makeup charmed her!"
(above); he reprised the role at the Identity and Clothes —Viola, 2.2
Globe in 2012, and the performance
is now available on DVD. Far more than in our world of conspicuous (male being the ideal for the Renaissance). So
display, for Renaissance society one's clothing if they were structured analogously, the clothes
was the key to one's identity. Only a lord might make a huge difference in stating one's gender.
wear silk, only royalty might wear purple or Male dress equals a male; female dress equals a
ermine, only the privileged might wear spurs female. To transgress this code off stage caused
or jewels, servants wore blue—England's ructions and prompted sermons from the pulpit
sumptuary [clothing] laws were specific and or pillorying and imprisonment—especially if the
clear. One need look only at the surface, person transgressed by dressing in the more
which told the essential truth of birth, status, privileged status of the male and took on that
and degree. authority.
Whereas in our world someone can However, Viola, as Jean Howard argues, is
choose to dress up or dress down, to dress not transgressive; she wears masculine apparel
goth or preppy or grunge whatever one's not to act out (or "up") but for temporary safety.
status, in the Renaissance that someone was She knows she is female, which is what she
supposed to dress "properly," accurately—so wants to be. She would prefer to seek Orsino's
of course everyone tried to dress better than love: "Viola's is a properly feminine subjectivity,"
his or her actual status. As a result, Philip Howard asserts. She gets trapped in her male
Stubbes protested in 1583 that when "every clothing, and thereby the play, Howard believes,
one is permitted to flaunt it out, in what apparell works to humiliate the much more independent
he lust himselfe … it is verie hard to knowe, and stereotype-threatening Olivia.
who is noble, who is worshipfull, who is a • How do you assess this view of Viola
gentleman, who is not." and Olivia?
Renaissance gender roles shared that References
Think all this is just in the superficial focus. The Renaissance viewed Jean Howard, "Crossdressing, The Theatre, and
Renaissance? Read the USA Today human biology as more or less unisex, all having Gender Struggle in Early Modern England,"
article from 8/8/17 shown above the same analogously shaped sexual equipment, Shakespeare Quarterly 39:4 (1988): 418-40.
about soccer-playing girls with short but men's superior "heat" made theirs external Stephen Greenblatt, Shakespearean Negotiations
hair challenged for being boys, and visible, while women's softer, "less hot" (Berkeley: U California Press, 1988)
ridiculed, and asked to prove their
nature kept theirs inferior, internal, invisible.
gender at tournaments
They were considered "imperfectly formed" men
 17

by William Shakespeare Character Issues and Questions

Orsino's and Olivia's unrequited loves • Sebastian walks right into a full-blown
• Both love on the basis of little knowledge passionate love from Olivia. How does he
and receive frequent denials and rebuffs assess the situation and how familiar to
• Both insist that they must be loved, send the themes of the play are his suspicions
tokens (especially rings) to their objects of of madness? Does he behave properly,
desire prudently, or "twelfth nightly" in pursuing
• Both send servants to entreat or fetch their Olivia's invitation to enter the house and
loved ones then to marry? Is he a good role model?
• Both comment about their loves, Orsino
to Cesario, Olivia in soliloquy. How does Other unrequited loves, Sir Andrew and
each assess the passion? his/her own role Malvolio
in it? • Why is Sir Andrew wooing Olivia? Does he
• Now how do their loves and their pursuit love her? What does he care about? What
of love differ? Although in Renasissance is the arc of his wooing?
social terms, a match between the • Compare Malvolio with Sir Andrew—
duke and the countess is ideal and to each is an unlikely wooer for Olivia, but
be expected, they do not marry; does Malvolio is tricked into believing his love
Shakespeare give us a happy ending, (or aspiration) is requited; he believes he
where the "right" people end up together, has been sought, that he is answering
Olivia woos Cesario; illustration or a twist on the happy ending? An the behest of his beloved, that his dream/
by Sir John Gilbert. alternate to the standard happiness? delusion is coming true. Andrew is
There is the issue that Olivia marries convinced by others to continue; Malvolio
a perfect stranger (which would not is convinced by the dropped letter (or does
be uncommon in that time, given the he convince himself?). The trickery toward
"Jove knows I love, / But frequency of arranged marriages, though it both men is revealed at the end, and in
seems strange to us). How do we assess comic terms both men are excluded from
who?" the marriages at the end? the reunified society of the conclusion.
—Maria's trick letter, 2.5 How should we feel about that? How do
Viola and Sebastian in love we feel in the production?
• Compare Viola's love with Orsino's and • Is Sir Toby the only requited lover in the mid-
Olivia's: it seems to begin as suddenly (do dle of the play? He loves booze and gets
we credit three days' casual it; he ends up married to Maria. Does he
acquaintance as greatly love her? On what basis?
deeper than the meeting in
1.5?).
• Viola's love is unspoken,
secret, yet it soon does
express itself, perhaps to
Olivia in guise of Orsino's
words in 1.5, certainly to
Orsino himself, in disguise
just as she is, in 2.4 ("My
father had a daughter loved
a man…"). Olivia says love
cannot be hidden, "love's night
is noon." Do we see Viola What makes love and lovers "tick"
remain true to Orsino as a in this play?
servant, trying to woo his lady
for him, or do her situation,
action, and responses change
Sebastian is the beneficiary of as she loves Orsino and Olivia
the love triangle; his route to love is loves Cesario?
straightforward–the lovely countess
proposes and he's smitten (H. C.
Selous)
 18

by William Shakespeare Quotations from Twelfth Night to Consider

Analyze each of the following phrases or lines for thematic import, often on several levels or
for several different characters or situations. Find other lines that carry thematic weight.

• "O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou…" (Orsino, 1.1)

• "What should I do in Illyria?
My brother he is in Elysium." (Viola, 1.2)

• " Is it a world to hide virtues in?" (Sir Toby, 1.3)

• "Yet a barful strife! / Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife." (Viola, 1.4)

• "O, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste

with a distempered appetite." (Olivia, 1.5)

• "I am not that I play." (Viola/Cesario, 1.5) and also later, Cesario: "I am not what I am."
Olivia: "I would you were as I would have you be." (3.1)

• "Love make his heart of flint that you shall love,

And let your fervor, like my master's, be
Feste helping in Sir Toby in 5.1— Placed in contempt!" (Cesario, 1.5)
the fool leading the "drowned
man" (Sir John Gilbert) • "Fate, show thy force. Ourselves we do not owe. [owe=own]
What is decreed must be; and be this so." (Olivia, 1.5)
Passages to Examine
• Olivia's beseeching Fate at • "What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
the end of 1.5, Sebastian's Present mirth hath present laughter;
entry in 2.1, and Viola's What's to come is still unsure…
beseeching Time at the end Youth's a stuff will not endure." (Feste's song, 2.3)
of 2.2
• Malvolio's 2.5 speech before • "Does thou think, because thou art virtuous, there
he finds the letter and the shall be no more cakes and ale?" (Sir Toby, 2.3)
one after it
• 3.1.131-164 for the way it • "Tis but fortune; all is fortune." (Malvolio, 2.5)
comments on the role-
playing and the wooing • "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some
• Sebastian's responses to have greatness thrust upon 'em." (Maria's letter, 2.5)
meeting Olivia in 4.1 and 4.3
• "This fellow is wise enough to play the fool." (Cesario, 3.1)
Shakespeare Concordance
• "I am as mad as he, / If sad and merry madness equal be." (Olivia, 3.4)
• In the Concordance, look
up the words fool, mad
• "Nothing that is so is so." (Feste, 4.1)
(madman, madness) and
time to find all the uses of
• "I'll sacrifice the lamb that I do love,
these words in the play, and
To spite a raven's heart within a dove." (Orsino, 5.1)
then analyze how the ideas
develop and interact.
• "One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons,
(The Concordance lists every
A natural perspective, that is and is not!" (Orsino, 5.1)
use of a word throughout
the canon.)
• "I shall have share in this most happy wreck." (Orsino, 5.1)

• "And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges." (Feste, 5.1)
 19

by William Shakespeare Twelfth Night Vocabulary

1.2/ Elysium = in Greek mythology, the abode of the blessed after death
1.3/ accost = assail, attack (in Renaissance also means the hesitant approach of a suitor)
galliard = a quick and lively dance in triple time
caper = a leap in a dance
1.5/ madonna = in Italian, ma donna, my lady (also a term used for Virgin Mary)
misprision = mistake, error
lethargy/lechery = the first is drunkenness, also unresponsiveness; the second is lust
willow = emblem of unrequited or disappointed love
cantons = songs
halloo = to shout
fee’d post = someone paid to deliver messages (before the postal service)
blazon = (orig. a term in heraldry=a coat of arms) proclaimed public praises
2.2/ monster = her dual identity as male/female seems hideous to her because
complicated, unrewarding, grotesque
Sir Toby makes fun of Sir 2.3/ diluculo surgere = part of a Latin phrase that means “to rise early is most healthful”
Andrew the minute he walks on stage
stoup = a cup or tankard for liquor (also means a basin for holy water at entry of church)
in 1.3 by having him woo Maria—
ineptly (Sir John Gilbert), and below, mellifluous = “honey-sweet”
Gilbert illustrates Orsino's approach catch = a song sung as a round
to Olivia's house that begins the
Peg-a-Ramsey = character in a popular song, here used in contempt
play's resolution
consanguineous = a blood relative (sang- is Latin root for blood)
sneck up = go hang
physic = medicine
"Odors," "pregnant," and
other scenes/ hold the bent = capacity, degree of endurance (literally, how far a bow can be bent)
"vouchsafed." I'll get
yeoman = keeper of a gentleman’s wardrobe
'em all three all ready."
Jezebel = a comment on Malvolio’s pride; Jezebel was the proud queen of Ahab, King of
—Sir Andrew, 3.1
Israel
scab = scurvy fellow
Fates = in Greek mythology, the three goddesses of Destiny who spun, measured, and
cut the thread of each person’s life
Dieu vous garde // Et vous aussi; votre serviteur = French: God keep you, sir //
And you, too; your servant
coffer = purse (literally means strongbox)
minion = darling, favorite

“Jove” references = in 1606 King James banned the use of the Lord’s
name on stage; some critics have theorized that texts written before
1606 may then have been edited, substituting “Jove” for “God.” Of
course, sometimes Jove is meant to be Jove.
 20

by William Shakespeare Activities Before and After the Performance

Pre-Show Discussion Topics Post-Show Discussion Topics
•Describe Mardi Gras—what do you •Discuss or write about how the portrayal
expect? what kind of behavior and type of the characters clarified, deepened, or
of relationships are associated with it? challenged your view of them, especially
what do people wear? what is Mardi Gras if you had read the play in advance.
about? What does seeing a production add to
What is the difference between party time your understanding? Does anything
and everyday life? What are party values? become clearer (text? motivations?
What are the values of everyday life? consequences?)? Was anything
Describe how parties progress. What unexpected?
"How quickly the wrong happens if neighbors complain about party
noise? How do the party people respond? •Consider how Twelfth Night's permissive
side may be turned Does the party have to end? Why? world develops and ends. Is this a happy
outward!" Compare Mardi Gras to the celebration of romantic comedy? Does it have darker
—Feste, 3.1 Twelfth Night (see p. 5). aspects? What is the balance of this
production, and what balance seems best
• How funny are practical jokes? What to you?
prompts them? How cool is it to set
someone up? Is it as funny to have a joke •Decide whose perspective is the center of
played on you? What happens when the the play or the play's values? Is it Viola
joke unexpectedly hits closer to home who moves between the two households,
that the jokesters know? Can jokes do or perhaps Feste, the observer/jester, who
damage? Is it always easy to laugh off a also moves between the two households?
practical joke? Or is it someone else?

• What does unrequited love feel like—when •Discuss what is romantic about the play and
the one you love doesn't love you back? what is broadly comic. Does comic simply
What can you do? What does mean funny? Are there parts that are not
that solitude do to you? How funny and do not intend to be—is anything
mixed up can your feelings serious? How do the various tones and
get? colors blend here?
Unrequited love—or not yet
requited love—is the state of • Describe the relationships of the major
most speakers in the courtly characters as if they were students in your
love sonnets that abounded school—the queen bee (the female every
in the Renaissance. Compare man wants), the high-status male who
your sense of that state with suddenly seems thwarted, the new kid
the way those speakers who suddenly gets thrust into the middle
describe it. See page 8 for of things, the party boys, the rule follower.
some examples. Are they familiar types? What parts of
the characterization and plot fit well with
• What effect does alcohol our world and which aspects do not fit as
have on human judgment and easily?
behavior? How much does it
take to impede reaction time • What advice would you give Orsino and
while driving? How much Olivia? What should they do? What
The ring scene—in the 18th does it take to alter behavior with other should they say? What about Viola? Sir
and 19th centuries, little effort was people? Does everyone respond to alcohol Andrew? Malvolio? Does the advice in
made to disguise Viola's femininity
the same way? our world apply equally to the world of the
when she is disguised as Cesario,
although the disguise in the Renais-
Renaissance?
sance was perfect. (it was played by
an actual boy). Do we need to see • If you had to pick one visual image to
Viola in Cesario? express Twelfth Night, what would it be?
Use your image to design a title graphic.
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