Twelfth Night Essays

The play Twelfth Night is set in a Elizabethan country household in a place called Illyria. Illyria is a fictional place. Although the setting felt familiar to the audience, the name Illyria gave it a feeling of escape from reality, something that was important because everyday life could be tough in those days. The people needed an escape from reality sometimes. In this play we meet the upper class, as well as the lower class. It is not certain whether it really is "twelfth night", but there are

Essay 1 Feste is a typical Shakespearean fool in the Twelfth Night. Feste works for both Olivia and Duke Orisino. He is shown as witty person who entertains everyone with his jokes, dancing and singing. Fool’s character is very ironic to his name because he is the wisest person in the whole Illyria who outshines everyone with his humour and wit. In his presence the mood of the environment becomes lighter and everybody have a good time. He moves easily between upper-class

Love triangles.  They’re complicated and quite messy, as shown in William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.  In Twelfth Night, twins Viola and Sebastian of Messaline are separated by a shipwreck, and both land in Illyria, but still separated, believing the other is dead.  Meanwhile, Duke Orsino is attempting to win over his crush, Lady Olivia, but she’ll have none of him since her brother died and she vows to mourn him for seven years, whilst avoiding everyone except her servants during such time.  Viola

Madness and foolishness make many appearances in Twelfth Night. Feste, the jester in count Olivia’s house states in act 3 scene 1, “foolery, sir, does walk about the ord like the sun; it shines everywhere.” The first appearance of madness in the play is when Orsino, the Duke of Illyria, is reciting a poem about love. Orsino, instead of showing madness as insanity or a mental illness he shows it as mad with love. Some have made inferences that the images Orsino creates with the poem is him hallucinating

“There is no great genius without a mixture of madness.” -Aristotle. Olivia’s clown, Feste has a very intriguing role in William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Throughout the play, Feste is a bold and valiant character who continually makes daring comments towards everybody, including his mistress. The clown’s job is to be silly and crazy but in reality, Feste has the most wisdom and intelligence of all characters. Feste is also able to delude the other characters in the play using his wit or a disguise

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

the beginning of the 20th century, The Go-Between demonstrates how a young boys deceived and clouded perception of life leads to a disillusioned old man, who can’t recover from the distressing events of the first summer of 1900. In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night disappointment is exhibited through many characters whom experience the torments of a love that is not reciprocated. Furthermore, Thomas Hardy explores similar themes in his poetry via the use of specific literary techniques, such as metaphors

In Act 1 of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Olivia falls for the reinvented identity of Viola, “Cesario”, the character she embodies along with her physical change. During her appearance earlier in the act, Orsino orders Viola to “unfold the passion of my love”(1.5.27). In the interaction between Olivia and “Cesario”, the actions Viola performs are merely for the expression of her disguise. Even the compliments where Viola refers to Olivia as “radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable beauty” (1.5.169) are

triangles. These are the staples of a standard Shakespearian play. Each play written by Shakespeare relies on these elements to allow the audience to receive the comedy of each play and move the plot along. One of Shakespeare’s most famous plays is Twelfth Night where drama dominates the story. The majority of the drama that occurs stems from the fact that little is as it seems because without the deception and drama that occurs in the play, the story would be stuck back in the first act. The characters

In Act 1, Scene 2 of Twelfth Night, as Viola lays down her plans before the captain, she speaks about a major theme of the play: the way a person seems outwardly versus their true self. Viola says she is aware people cannot be trusted based on their looks, but trusts the captain. She then requests his help so she can be dressed as a boy for the remainder of the play. The way she behaves also hits on another theme, the contrast between people that can act as a balance. Through comparison, she can