Twelfth Night Analysis

While many will agree that Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is critically acclaimed to be one of the most entertaining and well-liked pieces that he has written, there tends to be a discrepancy over how the characters in the play are portrayed when it comes to the importance of gender roles. After reading James C Bulman’s article over the Globe’s more recent performance of Twelfth Night and Shakespeare’s original written version, I realized that there are many ways that this famous piece has been portrayed and each has its own pros and cons.

    It is not unusual that the fool should be a prominent figure and make an important contribution in forming the confusion and the humor in an Elizabethan drama. In William Shakespeare's comedy, Twelfth Night, Feste the clown is not the only fool who is subject to foolery. He and many other characters combine their silly acts and wits to invade other characters that either escape reality or live a dream. In Twelfth Night, Feste, Maria and Sir Toby are the fools that make the comedy work in many senses.

In medieval and Elizabethan England, homosexuality was not only looked down upon, but was a crime punishable by law. Found perpetrators, including the famous King Edward II, were horribly punished. Edward was killed by “the slow and painful insertion of a red, hot poker into his anus”, along with his lover, who “had his genitals cut off and burned” (Sanders). Such is the world in which a bisexual William Shakespeare lived. Though he married Anne Hathaway at the age of 18, he was rumored to have had extramarital affairs with numerous men while in London (“Shakespeare’s Sexuality”). Gay men are present in many of Shakespeare’s plays, most prominently Twelfth Night. A sailor named Antonio falls in love with a man of noble birth named

She’s the Man is a modern adaptation and interpretation of The Twelfth Night but the

This week in class, we presented our revised challenge statements. I was extremely glad to have someone critique my revised challenge statement, as I was unsure about the changes I had made.

It is said that Queen Elizabeth I’s controversial reign at the time informed the play’s content. She, in fact, used to like to invite theater companies to her palaces[2] and saw a performance of the play at Christmastime while on a campaign in Ireland[3]. In her medieval England, people met the idea of a female monarch with hostility[4], because there had never been one until[5] . The challenge to tradition that was Queen Elizabeth I’s reign most likely to lead the discussion of gender roles in Twelfth Night.

The only reference to Twelfth Night during Shakespeare’s own lifetime is to a performance on February 2, 1602. A law student named John Manningham wrote in his diary about a feast he attended at the Middle Temple in London where he was a law student and where “we had a play called Twelfth Night; Or, What You Will." This was likely to have been an early performance since it is generally agreed that the play was probably written in 1601. In 1954 Sir Leslie Hotson’s book, The First Night of Twelfth Night, sought to identify the exact date of the first performance of Twelfth Night. He used the evidence of old records to suggest that Queen Elizabeth asked for a new play for the last night of the Christmas 1600-01 season, the Feast of the

In the kingdom of Illyria (fantasy world), Twelfth Night was supposedly originally written for the entertainment of Queen Elizabeth I. William Shakespeare’s comedy associates with the Feast of Epiphany (January 6th) and was means for entertainment in the seventeenth century. It contains some aspects that can be thought of as a successful comedy when compared to the standards of today’s society. The play incorporates some of the very same devices that are used in modern comedies today, such as topsy-turvy romance, foolery, and mistaken identities. Twelfth Night also involves many cultural aspects that would be tough for an audience today to relate with. Some of these ideas are social class, dialect, and lack of modern technology that affect

Shakespeare, in having Julia assumes a male disguise in Two Gentlemen of Verona, plays on “hose,” “codpiece,” and “pins” to emphasize cross dressing in Renaissance England. “Hose,” in the Oxford English Dictionary, comes from the Old English hosa and has the meaning of “an article of clothing for the leg” (OED). Similarly, “codpiece” refers to a “close-fitting hose or breeches worn by men from the 15th to the 17th century” (OED). Together, both “hose” and “codpiece” serve to remind the audience of Julia’s character transformation, undergoing from a female mistress to a male page. What significant about the word “codpiece,” however, is that it is a compounded word of “piece,” which derives from French peece and carries a meaning of “a portion

himself just to suit his outlook on the situation. For example, the play he twists Olivia's words around to make it seem like she likes his yellow cross-gartered tights when in reality she dislikes them. Sir Toby just considers himself and no one else, not even his companions. He ignores Maria's notification about drinking into the night, and he continues to push Sir Andrew and Olivia to court. Even though he believes that Sir Andrew doesn't have a chance. Olivia considers the all-inclusive community around her, yet she furthermore assumes that no man is meriting her brilliance. She assumes that she is "all that," and that no one can organize her. For Shakespeare to incorporate this sort of just a single was most likely to demonstrate that Malvolio who thinks excessively of himself isn't right about Olivia cherishing him.

In Shakespeare’s play, Twelfth Night or What you Will, the characters are involved in a plot complete with trickery, disguise, and love. Each character is defined not by his or her gender or true identity, but by the role they are forced to take because of the complicated situation that arises. Unlike their gender, the speech the characters give an insight to their true personalities. In the Twelfth Night, the character Duke Orsino uses flowery and over-dramatic language, long poetic sentence structure, and melodramatic metaphors to display his overemotional romantic nature despite the different emotions in his various speeches.

Although he doesn’t seem to learn or develop much through the duration of the play, Feste is no dull character. In fact, Feste is known as one of Shakespeare’s greatest, most interesting and well-written characters. The complexity of Feste’s speech and each of his interactions with other characters reveal multiple important perspectives and roles that help contribute to the play. In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare puts a spin on the importance of Feste’s role by casting him as Olivia’s licensed fool, the play’s commentator and a connection joint towards the reality of the audience as well as for the play’s storyline. Through his frequent witty comments, Feste’s extensive intelligence of the other characters shines through as he pinpoints their

School House Rock teaches that “three is a magic number.” We see threes all over the place: id, ego, superego; mother, father, child; father, son, holy ghost; reading, writing, ‘rithmatic. One place where the magic of three does not fit is in romance. Sex (conventionally and biologically) only has room for twos: sperm and egg; man and wife; big spoon and little spoon. Groups of three in the world of love create tension for the characters and audience, and the discomfort with the situation and sense of powerlessness leads to comedy. Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night has central love triangle between Cesario/Viola, Orsino, and Olivia; the excesses and complications within the triangle causes disorder for the characters and audience, and

Scene 1- On Cesario’s way to see Olivia, he(she) runs into Feste. Feste does not like Cesario, and he expresses it. However, Cesario does not take it personally and gives him a few coins. Cesario also runs into Sir Toby and Sir Andrew. Olivia meets with Cesario, and Cesario tries to give her another spill about Orsino’s love. Olivia apologizes for sending the ring and causing confusion and confesses growing love for Cesario. Olivia begs for Cesario to tell her if he(she) feels the same way. Cesario says no and asks Olivia about giving Orsino a chance. Olivia expresses her opposite feelings towards Orsino and tries to win Cesario over. She is unsuccessful, and Cesario leaves.

This essay discusses Act II, scene III of the Twelfth Night concentrating on the thematic concerns, groups of characters, language, word choice, and other features. The main themes of the Twelfth Night include the folly of ambition, love as an agent of suffering, and gender uncertainty. Before analyzing the main issues in the selected scene, it is necessary to .provide a brief summary of the scene. In the scene, there are five main characters and they continue to demonstrate the main themes of the play. The scene opens with Sir Andrew and Sir Toby drinking late in the night; Feste accompanies them, and the two request him to sing a love song. While the two continue with drinking spree, making too much noise, and becoming a nuisance, they interfere with others like Malvolio and Maria. Maria enters and tries to silence them, but it is too late since the noise has awakened Malvolio who comes and rebukes them for upsetting the family. The moment Malvolio departs the room; Maria make-ups a strategy to berate him since her writings are like that of Olivia's, and decides to jot a love letter to Malvolio as if she Olivia. The team agrees to