1 Subject: ENGLISH Class: B.A. Part 11 Honours, Paper-111[DRAMA] Topic: Justification of the title “Twelfth Night” By: Prof. Sunita Sinha Head, Department of English Women’s College Samastipur L.N.M.U., Darbhanga JUSTIFICATION OF THE TITLE TWELFTH NIGHT William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was a poet, playwright, and actor who is widely regarded as one of the most influential writers in the history of the English language. Often referred to as the Bard of Avon, Shakespeare’s vast body of work 2 includes comedic, tragic, and historical plays; poems; and 154 sonnets. Four of the Bard’s most famous comedies are: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night. Twelfth Night, or What You Will is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1601–1602. OCCASION: Shakespeare scholars believe that Queen Elizabeth I, commissioned William Shakespeare to write Twelfth Night, or What You Will as part of the Twelfth Night celebration to be held at Whitehall Palace on January 6, 1602. “CELEBRATIONS…FESTIVITIES…REVELRY IN TWELFTH NIGHT” TWELFTH NIGHT” 3 THE FIRST TITLE: ‘TWELFTH NIGHT’ Twelfth Night is the only one of Shakespeare’s plays to have an alternative title: the play is actually called ‘Twelfth Night, or What You Will’. The key to the meaning of Twelfth Night is in the title. Twelfth Night was a festival in Elizabethan times that was even more important than Christmas itself. It celebrated Epiphany, the time when traditionally we believe the three kings arrived and gave their gifts to Jesus. However, in Elizabethan times it was a festival that celebrated excess and chaos. Heavy drinking, cross dressing and a topsy-turvy social order were celebrated. This was before the end of the Christmas period and the beginning of January and a new year. In the Church of England, the Twelfth Night was celebrated on January 5th, when celebrants sang songs, defaced doors with chalk, and ate Twelfth Night cake. One of the most popular Twelfth Night traditions was to hide a pea and a bean within the cake. The man who discovered the bean would be proclaimed Lord or King of Misrule, while the lady who found the pea would be Lady or Queen of Misrule. The Lord of Misrule was usually a peasant or commoner who lead the drinking, as Twelfth Night was one of the few times of the year where servants were allowed to mix with their masters, sometimes even switching roles through disguises or by virtue of the coveted bean. Thus, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night clearly mimics the conventions of the Twelfth Night celebrations, with the social order of the play suspended and characters easily crossing social classes. After seeing the play on the eve of Epiphany in 1663, Samuel Pepys, a member of Parliament and Administrator of the English Navy said that Twelfth Night was “acted well, though it be but a silly play, and not related at all to the name or day.” While Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night makes no mention of the three magi, the baptism, or the birth of Christ, it 4 surely conveys the rowdiness of the holiday revelries. Feste the Fool, Sir Toby Belch, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek can all be considered versions of the Lord of Misrule, while Maria bears strong resemblance to the Lady of Misrule. Feste’s song at the end of the play suggests the reintroduction of reality – once the festivities are over, the audience will face a long, bleak winter in which social norms are back in place and debauchery is frowned upon. Traditionally we take our decorations down after Epiphany on 6th of January. So, understanding this festival more allows us to draw many parallels between the action of the play and its title. Sir Toby Belch and his cronies are celebrating to excess this festival. When he asks in Act II scene 3: But shall we make the welkin dance indeed? Shall we rouse the night owl in a catch that will draw three souls out of one weaver? Shall we do that? We hear the voice of a die-hard party-goer who is determined to extract the most fun and chaos out of this season. Because Twelfth Night also featured a topsy- turvy social order, we gain new understanding as to Malvolio´s hopes. Twelfth Night as a festival featured a reversal in power: servants would be waited on by their masters and there was general chaos and hilarity. This adds new emphasis to Malvolio´s hopes that he might have a chance with his mistress Olivia. Interestingly, the phrase “Twelfth Night” is first uttered in a conversation between Toby and Andrew- the two most important figures of the sub-plot. While Toby makes a plan for purposely deceiving Malvolio, Andrew deceives himself 5 unknowingly. Thus, the title is best suited to the temperament of revelry of two drunk men. The game of disguise and masks were usually followed in Twelfth Night celebration. In this play too, Viola is disguised as a boy, Cesario, and complicates the plot as Olivia falls in love with her and poor Viola is caught in a strange situation to woo a lady for a man whom she herself loves. Next, we also see that the Renaissance spirit of carnival, merriment and revelry is followed by Sir Toby, Sir Andrew Maria and Malvolio. Thus, we see that the title of Twelfth Night refers to the twelfth night of Christmas, also referred to as the eve of Epiphany, a day that commemorates the visit of the Magi to the baby and is fully justified too. In my opinion, the play was meant to be a fun, crude experience with noisy celebration and innocent clowning. Shakespeare saw this date as an excellent setting for the play—since there is so much festivity and craziness that already occurs, it is rife with potentially humorous situations. This jovial atmosphere and potential for humor make the twelfth night celebration an ideal setting for Shakespeare’s play. THE SECOND TITLE: WHAT YOU WILL What You Will, on the other hand, represents a challenge to the audience to try and interpret or make sense of the chaotic action in the play. What message are we as an audience going to take away from the action? The title What you Will bestows the audience with the responsibility of trying to process the chaos, humor and fun they have just seen. What do we make of Malvolio? How do we interpret the way that love is seen like a disease or a sickness that we suffer from? 6 So, to me, both titles are important to the play as a whole, elucidating its theme and message and involving the audience in the action. Clearly both need to be analysed carefully to how they relate to the play and what Shakespeare is trying to say through this masterful comedy. In fact, the second title may be compared to the title of As You Like It. By appending the subtitle Shakespeare possibly meant to say merely, as Conrad suggests, “ …herein are to be found comicalities of all kinds…disguises and delusions and mad pranks. What to call it, I know not, call it a ‘masquerade’, ‘a twelfth night’, or ‘whatever you like’.” In fact, the play being a broken landscape of the illusory world of Illyria, full of love and laughter, fancy and imagination, it is hard indeed to pin it down to a specific title. In my opinion, this play has this particular alternative title because it is not a very serious play. The phrase "what you will" means something like "whatever you want." It seems to me to indicate that Shakespeare does not take this play very seriously. As I understand it, this was a play meant to be put on at the climax of the Christmas festival season. This would mean that it was supposed to be a very light comedy that everyone would enjoy. I think that the alternative title reflects that. *********** BY: Prof. Sunita Sinha Head, Department of English Women’s College Samastipur L.N.M.U., Darbhanga Mob No:9934917117 Email: [email protected] .