1 Subject: ENGLISH Class: B.A. Part 11 Honours, Paper-111[DRAMA] Topic: Twelfth Night as a Festive Comedy Lecture No:182 By: Prof. Sunita Sinha Head, Department of English Women’s College Samastipur L.N.M.U., Darbhanga Twelfth Night as a Festive Comedy Twelfth Night can be considered a model Shakespearean comedy in that it employs nearly every feature of the genre: a wedding, mistaken identities, misunderstandings, physical comedy, and a happy ending. Like all of Shakespeare’s comedies, the play ends with a wedding – in this case, the joint wedding of two sets of lovers: Olivia and Sebastian, and Viola and Orsino. Also, as in many other comedies, the lovers are initially kept apart through misunderstandings, which lead to plot complications. Olivia falls in love with Cesario, (who is really Viola in drag,) but Viola can’t return Olivia’s love. Similarly, Viola falls in love with Orsino, who, believing Viola is Cesario, refuses to return her love. Only once true identities are revealed can the lovers unite with their appropriate partners. In addition to the preposterous plot, cross-dressing, and misunderstandings, the play 2 abounds in silliness. While the main characters are pursuing the wrong partners, the Fool, Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew provide plenty of comic relief in the form of ridiculous rhymes, songs, double entendre, and antics. Within all the silliness, however, Twelfth Night offers an exploration of desire as a fickle, overriding force of nature strong enough to overturn the social order. Shakespearean comedies often take place in societies where the social order is out of whack. In Twelfth Night, erotic desire wreaks havoc on the flimsy structures society has put in place. Under normal circumstances, the noble-born Olivia should not fall in love with a servant like Cesario, who (in disguise at least) occupies a lower social position. Likewise, Duke Orsino, who is pining for Olivia, should not feel an erotic pull toward Viola while she is masquerading as a boy servant. The speed and ease with which lovers shift from one object of desire to another (Orsino loves Olivia but then switches to Viola; Olivia has sworn off love to mourn her brother’s death but then quickly decides she loves Cesario; later she switches to Sebastian) underscores the erratic and all-consuming character of erotic yearning. In the play, desire hops about from person to person with little regard for social status, gender, or other limits that civil society has deemed important. At the same time, while the play concludes in a happy tone for its noble-born, heterosexual characters, palpable notes of discord remain for others. Malvolio and Antonio are two such unfortunates, left unpaired by the play’s conclusion. Malvolio has failed 3 to win Olivia’s heart because of his lower social status and his humorless Puritanism, while Antonio’s feelings for Sebastian, which can be read as possibly homoerotic in nature, remain unsatisfied. Feste the Fool’s final song adds another dash of bitterness to what should be a cheerful end. While we are asked to rejoice at the imminent marriages of the central characters, Feste’s song reminds us that marriage is difficult, long, and sometimes fails to bring about happiness: “But when I came, alas! to wive/…By swaggering could I never thrive” (V.i.). These departures from a more conventional finale are like a gentle wake-up call, rousing us from pleasant dreams and sending us back into the real world, where love (and the foolishness it engenders) is not always so harmless. The style of Twelfth Night is festive, mischievous, and witty. The title of the play refers to the twelfth night after Christmas, which is the night before Epiphany. Epiphany is a religious celebration marking the time the three Magi brought gifts to the infant Jesus. Traditionally, Twelfth Night is a day of celebrations, frivolity, song and music, and an overall topsy- turvy spirit. The style of the play Twelfth Night taps into the holiday’s playful irreverence. The play’s festive elements find clearest expression through the characters of Sir Toby and Sir Andrew, who stay up late drinking, dancing, and instigating mischief. “I delight in masques and revels sometimes altogether” says Sir Andrew (I.iii.). Sir Toby frequently echoes this party sentiment: “…Let us therefore eat and drink. Marian, I 4 say! A stoup of wine!” (II.ii.). Similarly, the ample use of music in the play further channels the celebratory mood of Epiphany, such as Sir Toby and Andrew’s fun and improvised “catches,” and the songs that Feste performs throughout. Meanwhile, the frequent use of puns and double entendre (deployed mostly by Feste) give the play its distinctly witty feel. “A sentence is but a chev’ril glove to a good wit,” Feste says to Viola (III.i), meaning that a clever imagination can twist language inside-out like a glove, manipulating sense at will. Feste often skillfully uses verbal puns to reveal the hidden traits of other characters. When he brazenly calls Lady Olivia a “fool,” and insists that she (not him) be taken away, he reasons that since her brother is now in a better place, as she herself believes, then she is foolish to grieve as intensely as she does: “The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother’s soul in heaven” (I.v.). Feste’s pun questions the true meaning of a word like “fool.” Is Feste a fool simply because of his profession as a jester and clown, or is Olivia a fool for her indulgent attachment to an irrational melancholy? In general, the use of puns serves to cut through characters’ delusions about themselves and reveal their true motivations. *** 5 By: Prof Sunita Sinha Head, Department of English Women’s College, Samastipur L.N.M.U. Darbhanga Mob: 9934917117 E mail: [email protected] Website:www.sunitasinha.com .