Our study of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is an opportunity for us to see how a text can be brought to life, expose ourselves to timeless themes and essential human experiences, envelop ourselves in a foreign and ancient culture that is at the same time accessible, inspire ourselves with skilled use of the English language, and engage ourselves in the world of theatre.
The idea of studying a Shakespearean play can be daunting because of his use of language and tempting merely to refer to "modern" plain text versions, such as No Fear Shakespeare; however, it is important, worthwhile, and fascinating to engage directly with Shakespeare’s original language, which is rich in connotations, allusions, puns and general artistry. We are going to use an online resource, Twelfth Night Navigator, to help us with that task.
Twelfth Night was written and performed in a context much different from ours, and, while they play addresses universal questions and experiences, we should be familiar with Elizabethans' worldviews to properly understand why things are happening the way they are and how this would have been understood by the original audience. Again, the Twelfth Night Navigator can help us with that, and the Life in Elizabethan England: A Compendium of Knowledge provides even more information for the real keeners!
Fun Fact: Those of you who have seen She's the Man will notice many similarities since the movie is based on Twelfth Night.
Since the middle ages and continuing into the 1800s, Christmas was celebrated for 12 days, beginning on Christmas Day (December 25th) and continuing until January 6th (the Twelfth Night). It was common for these twelve days to consist of feasting, gift-giving, singing, dancing, games, and mischief. Until the mid-1700s, when the Puritans banned the tradition, the head of the local parish would appoint someone to be the Lord of Misrule, who would preside over entertainments or unruly events involving drinking, revelry, role reversal and general chaos. The monarch would appoint his own Lord of Misrule (though Queen Elizabeth did not do this). The Lord of Misrule's reign came to an end on the Twelfth Night. The Twelfth Night also marked the Feast of the Epiphany (meaning revelation or manifestation), when the three wise men, or Magi, arrived in Bethlehem to behold the Christ child.
Certainly Shakespeare's Twelfth Night exemplifies the revelry, role reversal, and mischief often associated with the tradition, and as it was written in 1601, Shakespeare and his audiences would have been familiar with and observed the festivities described above. We might ask who the "Lord of Misrule" is in this case: the Fool? Viola/Cesario? Considering that the Twelfth Night ended with the Epiphany, might we expect some secret identities to be revealed at the end of the play? Hmm...
View the video for a quick overview of Shakespeare's world.
Do you hear typical BBC or British film stars in your head when you think of Shakespeare? Think again!
The various levels of Elizabethan society (even individuals themselves) were arranged in a strict hierarchy known as the Chain of Being. If the Chain of Being was somehow violated, for example through attempts at vertical social mobility (rising from one class to a class above) or by allowing one's passions (rather than reason) to guide one's decisions, one's personal life and possibly the entire society would be thrown into chaos.
In Shakespearean tragedies, this often resulted in death or required death in order to set things right again. In Shakespearean comedies, this resulted in humorous or ridiculous situations and people (and/or their reason) would need to somehow be put back in their place to resolve the plot.
Twelfth Night is a comedy, and so we should expect to see at least some of the characters forego their reason in favour of passion, and some characters trying to rise above their station, resulting in hilarious chaos to be resolved near the end.
According to Aristotle, there are two fundamental forms of drama: tragedy and comedy. Read his analysis of comedies to get an idea of what kinds of characters are featured, and how the plot normally works.
Twelfth Night has elements of farce, romantic comedy, and satire: Toby, Maria, Andrew, and the Fool's shenanigans with Malvolio and sometimes Viola/Cesario often become farcical; Viola/Cesario, Olivia, Orsino, Malvolio, Andrew, and later Sebastian are involved in multiple love triangles, creating a wonderful romantic comedy; and the Fool's commentary on many of the situations helps draw out the satire of people in power succumbing to base desires.
Reading a Shakespearean play is a bit different than reading a modern play. Elizabethan language aside, more or less the only stage directions given are entrances and exits (or "exeunts" in which all actors exit the stage). Any additional notes you see that suggest choreography have been put there by scholars to assist readers with clarity (e.g., asides). Some choreography is implied by the dialogue (implied stage action), for example characters referring to a ring that is first in one's hand and then on the ground suggests the actor must throw or place a ring on the ground. Oftentimes, there are songs in the play, but there is no written music to accompany the songs. This lack of direction in choreography, music, lighting, set design, etc. leaves lots of room for modern directors to interpret the play in unique ways, contributing to Shakespeare's continued influence and inspiration today.
Similar to many modern day plays, the play is divided into acts, which are subdivided into scenes. With Shakespeare, the dialogue is also given line numbers, in part because the dialogue itself is often poetry (blank verse, meaning that each line is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter) for characters of noble birth or high social status, and in part for consistency and reference, much like how the Bible's books were divided into chapters and verses by scholars much later than when the manuscripts were written. Additionally, similar to the Bible, the text we have today was pieced together from multiple manuscripts (handwritten copies), meaning that different editions may explain or include/exclude oddities or discrepancies differently; with Shakespeare, different editions also have slightly different line numbers depending on how large the pages of the published text were, how much text could be fit across the page and, thus, where line breaks were necessary.
Because our text is online as a set of webpages, the best way to create and keep annotations is to use the Diigo Extension for Chrome.
Dramatic Elements
act
actor
aside
audience
choreography
dialogue
director
entrance/exit
implied stage action
line
mise-en-scene
monologue
prop
scene
script
stage
soliloquy
Narrative Elements
antagonist
antecedent action
character foil
climax
comedy (romantic, farce, satirical)
denouement
dilemma
dramatic irony
dynamic character
exposition
flat character
foreshadowing
indirect characterization
juxtaposition
mood
motivation
parallelism
plot
protagonist
round character
setting
situational irony
static character
stock character
theme
tone
verisimilitude
Figures of Speech & Style
alliteration
allusion
analogy
archaic language
archetype
assonance
blank verse
colloquial language
connotation
consonance
couplet
denotation
euphemism
figurative language
hyperbole
iambic pentameter
imagery
literal meaning
malapropism
metaphor
metonymy
motif
onomatopoeia
oxymoron
paradox
personification
prose
pun
rhetorical question
rhyme
rhythm
satire
simile
symbol
synonym
verbal irony