Twelfth Night is a comedic play written by Shakespeare centered around two twins, Viola and Sebastian. Viola who disguises herself as a eunuch named Cesario falls in love with Duke Orsino, who is in love with the Countess Olivia. When Cesario meets with Olivia, Olivia begins to fall in love with him thinking that she is a boy. Meanwhile, Malvolio, the steward of Olivia’s house, is tricked by other characters into thinking that Olivia has fallen in love with him. The characters often declare their love for one another through monologues. Throughout the story, Shakespeare effectively uses dramatic speeches to demonstrate love as being uncertain through the characters; Viola, Orsino, and Malvolio.…
For hundreds of years people from all over the world have seen the works of William Shakespeare performed by thousands of actors. Twelfth Night or What you Will is but one of the many comedies written by William Shakespeare that have been produced in many formats, from theater, television and even several feature films. So many different productions of the same works have opened the door to directors adding their own twist to the original script to make it their own. One play can be performed countless different ways, from very conservative or to unconventional depending on the director’s interpretation and intentions. So all writings are open for creative interpretation thus being for this paper I am going to focus on the directorial staging of this play and how the staging and direction brought the focus of the subplot of Antonio and Sebastian into a homoerotic relationship opposed to other renditions of Twelfth Night that were homosocial. Directors have creatively reconstructed these plays pulling from the era, the popular ideology of the community and political correctness at the times the different styles and interpretations so that Shakespeare can be adapted to the current times.…
1. In Twelfth Night, Orsino says “If music be the food of love, play on”, play on can be portrayed as music playing on. The symbol of music is shown a lot and is compared to as love itself, this is proven through the quote above.…
Like Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, TwelfthNight moves from personal frustration and social disorder to individual fulfilmentand social harmony by means of what Leo Salingar has shown to be the traditional comic combination of beneficent fortune and human intrigue.' This basic pattern, of course, takes a radically different form in each play. In comparison with many of the comedies, Twelfth Nightbegins with remarkablylittle conflict. The opening scenes introduce no villain bent on dissension and destruction, nor do they reveal disruptive antagonism between parents and children or between love and law. In contrast to the passion and anger of the first scene of A Midsummer Night'sDream,the restless melancholy or that pervades the beginning of TheMerchant Venice, the brutality and tyranny of LikeIt, the dominant note of Orsino's court and that precipitate the action in As You of Olivia's household is static self-containment. To be sure, both Orsino and Olivia…
Romantic love, one’s unconditional love, consists of a great portion of the play as it forms a part of the love triangle and is a key element when all issues concerning identity are resolved. First experienced by Viola, she, disguised as a eunuch, starts to fall in love with the Duke Orsino. When sent by the Duke to seek Olivia’s love, Viola makes it clear to the audience saying, “Whoe’er I woo, myself would be his wife” (I, iv, 42) . Later on, she becomes aware of the existence of a love triangle. Viola’s situation, already complex, worsens and she states, “My state is desperate for my master’s love” (II, ii, 36). When questioned about her love interest by the Duke, Viola answers someone “Of your complexion” (II, iv, 26) and “About your years, my lord” (II, iv, 28), subtly hinting her love. Troubled by her position in the love triangle, Viola decides to ask the Duke himself, who refuses to accept that Olivia does not share his love, what to do. She seeks helpful answers when she says,…
In Twelfth Night the fundamental plot line of Viola arriving in Illyria, as a result of the shipwreck, and is the catalyst of some of the main comic events within the play. This is achieved through the visual, parallel image of Viola dressed up as her twin brother Sebastian. Her disguise creates hilarious moments of farce such as patterns of ludicrous suits for marriage and a comedic slapstick ‘play within a play’. However Shakespeare also uses parallel imagery within his structure and setting, disassociated from Viola’s disguise, to create comedy.…
In Act 1 Scene 1-3, Shakespeare “Twelfth Night” explores many thematic ideas such as disguise, love and rejection. In Scene 1, Shakespeare explores the idea of disguise and hiding through Viola’s manly disguise as well as Olivia’s withdrawals from the world through her veil. Due to Viola migrating to the land of Illyria, Viola decides that, in that case, she will disguise herself as a young man and seek service with Duke Orsino instead. On the other hand, Olivia withdraws herself from the world by wearing a veil, “She will veiled walk”, hiding her face after her brother died. Scene one also explores the idea of loss of loved ones through the connect Viola and Olivia share to do with losing their brothers. This foreshadows a connection between the two as they both share a very unusual trait in having “a brother’s dead love”. The final idea that Shake spear explores in Scene one is the unrequited love experience through Olivia who…
Twelfth Night is a reference to the twelfth night after Christmas Day, called the Eve of the Feast of Epiphany. It was originally a Catholic holiday but, prior to Shakespeare 's play, had become a day of revelry. Servants often dressed up as their masters. The masquerading that is a frequent part of an Epiphany celebration is of course captured in Viola 's plan to disguise herself as a man. Almost all the in the play are either taken in by another characters disguise or a deception regarding their own identity. The confusions that unravel in amongst it give the audience an urge to want to read on. I think Shakespeare presented these to show that things really are not always what they seem to be, plus to show the consequences of deception. Hence, nearly every character at some points conceals reality behind some type of deception, leading to various consequences. Furthermore, the deception and confusion presented throughout this story makes each character develop an identity with either showing cleverness or madness, while it also makes each character realize the principles towards obtaining love and…
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 our lives today. Shakespeare appeared ahead of his time since this comic play can relate to an audience of modern times, but it poses some obstructions for the modern audience to appreciate it to the same degree that his original audiences did.…
William Shakespeare’s works have everlasting significance due to the fact that his plays explore key ideas still relevant in our own time. Shakespeare’s play Twelfth night was written in 1602, as a comedy. It contains ideas and themes that link it closely with society. Twelfth Night explores the idea of love through his characterisation of Viola and Duke Orsino. Andy Fickman’s film modernised Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night through the change of some parts of the play and updating them.…
In Shakespeare’s day, this holiday was celebrated as a festival in which everything was turned upside down—much like the upside-down, chaotic world of Illyria in the play. Shakespeare entered this artistic phase (dark comedies). “Twelve Night” reveals the beginning of this dissatisfaction. “Twelve Night” was performed at the Inns of Court. (Norton 370) There was no indication that Shakespeare wrote “Twelve Night,” or any of his plays for special court reasons. “Twelve Night” is based on barnabe riches story of Apollonius and silla (1581) but none of these settings has any considerable realism of local color. Hazlitt described the setting of Shakespeare’s comedy as being of a pastoral and poetical cast. Producers were driven to a decision by the necessity of scenery and costume of Venice, which ruled the Adriatic isles. (Mowat, 11)…
“Nothing that is so is so,” states the fool Feste while looking at Viola’s twin brother Sebastian, a double for Cesario (IV.i.9). This singular quotes embodies the idea that gender identity is fictional in Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare, and that homoerotic desires are natural to the human body and mentality. Throughout this play, many characters are introduced to having homoerotic desires: Orsino for Viola dressed as Cesario, Sebastian for Antonio, and Olivia for Viola dressed as Cesario. Most provocative is the homoerotic desire between Maria and Olivia. Olivia, the lady of her house, is the employer of lady-in-waiting Maria, who serves Olivia with her best intentions in mind. Olivia feels a dutiful comfort with Maria, proven through…
In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare constantly alludes to the contrast between darkness and light by the use of secrets, mistaken identities and the contrast between sanity and insanity. With this motif Shakespeare shows us that if we act on first impressions without the true knowledge of the entity of the situation or character, then the misinformed motives will surely be in vain; and our efforts futile.…
The costumes changes make these characters act as if they are in a role-playing game and creates a performance-within the-performance which creates the illusion that the audience of Twelfth Night are simultaneously watching two plays. Shakespeare in this scene reminds the audience, through these role-playing games that Maria fools Malvolio with, that, like the characters, each individual member of the audience may sometimes also play different roles in their own lives and are likely to also play around with the lives of others by pretending to be other…
In Shakespeare's uniquely constructed comedy, Twelfth Night, there are several paradoxes within the characters. Misinterpretations as well as false presentation of reality are both common occurrences within the characters. Nearly the entire cast of characters use or fall victim to some form of deceit. Both Andrew and Viola present themselves as people they are not, and Orsino and Malvolio are fooled themselves about who they are and where they want and can be. Also, on a historical note, both Olivia and Feste the clown step (by default or self-attainment) out of the socially imposed stereotypes of their biologically born person. The reasons for Shakespeare's contradictions of characters are unknown; however, it can be hypothesized, knowing the man and his style that he was poking fun at elements of the society, in which he resided, as well as the ridiculousness of higher class citizens and the ritual absurdity of the lives they lived.…