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Twelfth-Night-By-William-Shakespeare UGC MHRD e Pathshala Subject: English Principal Investigator: Prof. Tutun Mukherjee, University of Hyderabad Paper 02: English Literature 1590 – 1798 Paper Coordinator: Dr. Anna Kurian, University of Hyderabad Module No 03: Shakespearean Comedy: Twelfth Night Content writer: Ms. Maria Rajan Thaliath;St. Claret College, Bangalore Content Reviewer: Dr. Anna Kurian, University of Hyderabad Language Editor: Dr. Anna Kurian, University of Hyderabad Section One: Shakespeare and Comedy in Elizabethan England William Shakespeare (b.1564- d.1616) wrote between 1590 and 1613, an age that enjoyed political, social and economic ease compared to the years that preceded and would succeed it. As such, the volume of literay output during this time was very large. He has to his credit thirty seven plays and 154 sonnets. His plays are often categorised for convenience as Tragedies, Comedies and Historical plays. A fourth class is sometimes identified to include plays that exhibit the traits of tragedies upto a certain point and then go on to a felicitous rather than a tragic resolution. These are the Tragi-comedies or the Romance plays of the final period of his career. Some of the noteworthy Shakespearean comedies are- A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595), Much Ado about Nothing (1598), As You Like It (1600) and Twelfth Night (1601). These show a maturity in the bard's style, lacking in his early comedies like The Comedy of Errors (1593), Love's Labour's Lost (1594) and The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1595). Being a Renaissance man, Shakespeare must have been well- acquainted with the Latin Comedies of Plautus and Terence. Several of his plays, therefore, borrow the plots and structure of these plays. Shakespeare's comedies bestow a sense of well being upon the audience. They have powerful women characters, much like Queen Elizabeth herself. The main action revolves around love. The lovers usually have to overcome several obstacles before they can be united. The play usually ends in one or more marriage(s). Often themes like illusion, deception, disguise and madness are used as foils to the main theme of love. Shakespeare's comedies have a light humorous tone, though his mature comedies have a more philosophical aspect to them. The dialogues are clever and witty and characterized by puns- clearly intended to please the audience. The use of stock characters like the drunken knight and the fool- traditions carried over from the medieval times were still prevalent. Yet even these characters, in his hands, become more rounded and less puppet-like than their predecessors. Though his plots are not original, Shakespeare incorporated contemporary political and social elements into his plays which made them the success they were. The other notable comic dramatists of the period were Ben Jonson, George Chapman, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton and John Marston. Unlike Shakespeare who mainly concentrated on Romantic Comedies, these playwrights developed the tradition of the Comedy of Humours and City Comedy. The former made use of one peculiar character trait for each specific character, while the latter represented London city life in a satirical manner to achieve their comic effects. Every Man in His Humour (1598) and The Alchemist (1610) by Jonson belong to the first category, while Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday (1599) and Chapman, Marston and Jonson's Eastward Hoe! (1605) belong to the second. If the early critics of Shakespeare's comedies drew upon the gaiety of his plays, many new perspectives have been added by scholars since the twentieth century. Themes like sexuality, gender roles and identity crisis of the characters have been analysed to give his plays a more meaningful and complex aspect. Apart from this, his plays have been studied in the light of genre, language, history, politics and performance. C. L. Barber in Shakespeare’s Festive Comedy: A Study of Dramatic Form and its Relation to Social Custom (1959) looks at the saturnalian patterns in the comedies and relates it to the Elizabethan holiday rituals and customs. Northrop Frye's A Natural Perspective: The Development of Shakespearean Comedy and Romance (1965), seeks to connect Shakespearean comedy with the popular, the conventional and the mythic. In it he goes on to argue how comic endings are themselves a human fantasy of wish-fulfilment- “The drive toward a festive conclusion, then, is the creation of a new reality out of something impossible but desirable.” In Shakespeare and the Traditions of Comedy (1974) Leo Salingar argues that “by the end of the comedy marriage appears as the resolution of the broader tensions, as the type or focus of harmony in society as a whole”. Terry Eagleton in his work William Shakespeare: Rereading Literature (1986) comments on how the bard's “belief in social stability” is undermined by the “flamboyant punning, troping and riddling” in his language. Section Two: Twelfth Night; or What You Will- Sources and Summary The first record of Twelfth Night; or What You Will is from John Manningham's diary entry dated February 1602. Literary evidence suggests that Shakespeare wrote the play between 1600 and 1601, shortly before or after he wrote Hamlet. Twelfth Night was published much later as part of the First Folio in 1623. The story of the play seems to have been, atleast partly, borrowed from an Italian play, Gl'ingannati (The Deceived) written in 1531. An English story entitled “Apollonius and Silla”, written by Barnabe Riche in 1581, also narrates the tale of a shipwreck, a pair of twins, and a woman disguised as a man. It is assumed that Gl'ingannati was the inspiration for Barnabe Riche's story and that it is from either one or both of these that Shakespeare created the plot involving Viola, Sebastian, Duke Orsino and Olivia. However, no satisfactory sources have been discovered for the sub-plot involving Sir Toby, Maria, Malvolio et al. This part is considered to be Shakespere's own ingenious improvisation. The title of the play seems to be a reference to the twelve days long festivities after Christmas that ended on January sixth. Traditionally, right from the medieval times, this was a season when general mayhem ruled with social and sexual mores being subverted. There are several arguments as to the choice of this title. One, perhaps the first performance of this play coincided with the twelfth day after Christmas. Two, given the nature of the play, it would have been an appropriate setting. In fact, a song sung by Sir Toby, one of the characters comes very close to a popular Christmas carol. Interestingly, this is one of the few Shakespearean plays to have a subtitle (“What you Will”). It would suggest that the playwright wanted his play to be taken in its proper spirit- a lighthearted comedy that could be interpreted anyway one wills. Some believe Shakespeare could have been mocking the custom of providing subtitles to works, by giving one that was useless and added no additional information about the play. Like his other comedies, Twelfth Night is a romantic comedy. Viola, a noblewoman is washed ashore at Illyria, having apparently lost her only brother, Sebastian at sea. Making enquiries, she learns that Illyria is being ruled by Duke Orsino. According to rumours the Duke has been striving in vain for the love of Olivia, the daughter of a deceased count. Olivia refuses to countenance the Duke's advances, citing her brother's recent death as the reason. She has vowed to confine herself to her mourning weeds and to renounce the company of men for a period of seven years. Viola decides to pledge herself in service to Olivia. However, on being informed that the countess will take no one into her service, Viola decides to offer her services to the Duke instead. She dresses up as a man and presents herself as 'Cesario' at the Duke's court. Young Cesario soon finds favour in the eyes of the lovesick Duke, who delegates him the delicate task of wooing Lady Olivia on his behalf. Matters are complicated by the fact that Viola herself, has now begun to fall in love with the Duke. The persistent Cesario is admitted into the presence of Olivia, who is soon captivated by the handsome, well-spoken messenger of the Duke. Meanwhile, Olivia's uncle, Sir Toby Belch, a wayward lover of revelry and wine has brought into the house, a foolish, rich knight Sir Andrew Aguecheek, with promises of Olivia's hand in marriage. Sir Toby is, in reality, duping the knight of his money. Feste, the fool employed by Olivia contributes generously to the general horseplay with his songs and witty banter. Malvolio, the rather stern and self-righteous Puritanical steward of the household frowns upon the merry- making of the lot and constantly chides them to maintain order. In retaliation, Sir Toby and Maria, Olivia's maid hatch a plot to humiliate the presumptuous Malvolio. Maria writes a letter in the hand of her mistress, suggesting that Olivia is in love with Malvolio. The ambitious steward on receiving the letter thanks his good fortune and decides to act as per the instructions of the letter to win the love of his mistress. Smiling, cross-gartered and dressed in yellow stockings, he approaches Olivia. The lady of the house, now saddened by Cesario's repudiation of her love, does not know what to make of Malvolio's “strange” behaviour and has him transferred into the custody of her uncle and other servants, who have a laugh at his expense. Viola's brother, Sebastian who had till now been thought to be drowned, reaches Illyria. Antonio, the sea-captain who saved him, further aids Sebastian by lending him his purse.
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