Twelfth Night, or What you Will
What is Twelfth Night About?
For a plot synopsis, see the Folger edition's opening page. For a real understanding of the play, you'll need to read Shakespeare's Twelfth Night using the assigned edition for your course, a specific edition required by your professor (strongly recommended). If your professor has not required a hard-copy edition, you may choose your own from your favorite library or read the text of the play in a Digital Edition produced by the Folger Shakespeare Library. Avoid relying on internet summaries or modern-language re-tellings.
Twelfth Night is a comedy. [FILL IN MORE BASICS] Merrymakers at Shrovetide
The play's thematic interests include:
Music
Image of musician From Orsino’s suggestion that it is “the food of love” (1.1.1) to the drunken round of Toby, Andrew, and Feste, music plays a significant role in the play. As the editor of your textbook notes in his introduction to the play, Twelfth Night begins and ends with music, and Shakespeare inserts songs at various points of the action. Note these places in the text, as well as other instances in which Shakespeare deploys music metaphorically (as in 1.1.1 and elsewhere). Photograph of a 17th century Viola d' Amoure
Households & Social Status
Much of Twelfth Night’s action takes place within two households. Pay attention to the members of each and the ways in which each house projects a particular ethos or character. What structures or desires facilitate movement between houses? Which characters travel and traffic between the two households, and which ones appear to be relatively static in location? Additionally, take note of economic and social hierarchies within the houses, as well as the money that exchanges hands for services rendered. The Ship Captain in Act 1 refers to the “great ones” and “the less” (1.2.33)—a simplistic break-down of social class in the period, but an interesting one in some ways: which characters in the play fit into each category? Which characters suggest the inadequacy of the Captain’s assessment for the play’s complex social structures? Viola, Olivia, and Malvolio at Olivia's House
Friends and Siblings
As in The Comedy of Errors, Shakespeare exploits the comic potential of siblings who look alike; additionally, he sets up contrasts and parallels between sibling relationships and friendships—particularly, in this play, with male friendships. Pay attention to the ways in which Shakespeare constructs male bonds in opposition to the familial bonds of brotherhood/sisterhood (and uncle/niece). In other words, note the ways in which the play explores natural/biological affinities vs. social bonds.
Love, Youth & Gender
Throughout Twelfth Night, characters discuss the ways in which youth and gender bear upon one’s ability to love and be loved. Viola’s disguise, in particular, both constructs and deconstructs masculinity and femininity as natural/biological concepts—as does the fact that women’s parts were played by boy actors on stage. Note instances in the play in which characters comment on youth and gender, particularly when such notions are invoked to explain what men and women find attractive and virtuous in others. What makes a man “fancy” a woman? To what extent are such features intrinsic to a specific gender—that is, could the same characteristic and behavior in a man make a man fancy a person of his own gender? And vice versa? Patience on a Monument
Will, Wit, and Trickery
The play’s subtitle invokes the idea of the “will,” a term that could mean a number of things in early modern England (and 21st century America). Keep track of how characters in the play deploy various usages of “will” throughout. Do so as well with “wit,” another term that most everyone in Twelfth Night deploys repeatedly as a treasured possession. To what extent is “wit” synonymous with trickery? To what extent do characters define it in opposition to trickery? Why is wit necessary or desirable?
Madness
Inextricably linked to the play’s depiction of wit and trickery, madness also forms a significant part of Twelfth Night’s discourse—especially after the gulling of Malvolio. Disguise, trickery, and the presence of twins typically make appearances at odds with characters’ sense of reality (a trope Shakespeare also exploits in The Comedy of Errors), confounding them temporarily; such confusion lends to the play’s festive, if somewhat dark, comedy. Note places in which characters invoke madness and describe its effects or manifestations. Image of Malvolio
