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Twelfth Night
It is worth noting at the outset that all the female characters in Shakespeare's
plays were played, during his lifetime, by adolescent boys. This play is very
self-conscious about this practice, especially in the way Viola is presented--a
boy actor dressed as a woman who, in the course of the play's main plot, dresses
as a boy and attaches herself as a servant to the man she grows to love. Stephen
Greenblatt's introduction in the Norton edition focuses on this matter at some
length and is worth reading.
This play is often regarded as a "festival" comedy, that is a comedy
specifically designed for performance on a festival day. In this case, as the
title suggests, the feast is "Twelfth Night," the feast of the Epiphany,
or the last day of the Christmastide revels. For more on this see Greenblatt's
Norton edition introduction.
1.1. Orsino's concepts or notions of love are established immediately. It's
worth taking the time to work them out as precisely as possible from his first
speech. What sort of image is implied by music as the "food" of love?
Is music what love desires? Or does this mean that music inspires love and makes
it grow stronger? Does Orsino ask for excess of music or excess of love? What
sort of appetite does he imagine love to be?
What sort of image of love is prompted by the sea simile? What is Orsino's notion
of "fancy." Orsino's word-play on hart/ heart is confusing. Sometimes
he seems to designate Olivia as his "heart," "the noblest that
I have," but the problem is that he doesn't have Olivia at all. Then he
applies the hart metaphor to himself, as if he were hunted by his own personified
desires (his own "heart," as it were, and so is victim of his own
desires. Desires for Olivia, for surfeit, for "a dying fall"?
Orsino's man, Valentine, entertains his master with a very bizarre image of
Olivia's mourning habits. He likens her to a nun who cries all day long, and
whose tears are like the brine used to preserve vegetables like pickles--"all
this to season/ A brother's dead love, which she would keep fresh." Perhaps
Valentine's bizarre imagery reflects his scorn for Olivia, or his growing boredom
with this apparently hopeless suit. Or perhaps he chooses his imagery because
he knows it will entertain his master who also tends to link desire, hopelessness,
and images of death, as if love, to him, were best enjoyed in hopelessness and
frustration?
Orsino's imagination continues its bizarre tones as he fancies his conquest
of Olivia. Valentine's description of her over-the-top mourning practice does
not invite his scorn, but sharpens his desire. He admires such dedication, perhpas
because it is dedication to a hopeless cause. She cannot keep either her brother
or his love "fresh" with "eye-offending brine" or anything
else. Orsino appears to get really turned on by the image of Olivia's utterly
hopeless (even ridiculous) devotion. He imagines that "the rich golden
shaft" of desire for him will kill and supplant all other affections and
so make him the object of her weird devotion. It turns out, of course, that
Orsino is far more weird about love than Olivia, whose excessive mourning for
her brother is mostly a cover for other desires.
1.2. The Captain's brief account of Olivia's recent history is revealing. Her
father died a year ago and left his County and fortune to his son. She was left
in her brother's "protection." Since then the son, her brother, has
died. That means that Olivia is now in the position of the Count; she is a Countess.
She has achieved a kind of widow's position without ever having been married
or widowed. Orsino's desire, though he doesn't say so, may have something to
do with her inherited position. Her resistance to his suit may indicate her
desire to hold onto a position of independence she would lose if she married.
In any case, she's a very eligible catch--all the fortune and position of a
widow (a role she plays with some gusto) and yet a maid.
Viola is immediately attracted to this lady, or more precisely, to her position.
It reminds her of her own position. She also is the daughter of a nobleman,
and her twin brother may be drowned (in salt water, no less). She has good reason
to bide her time until she can determine just what her "estate" is,
and to attach herself to a woman of similar "estate." She is even
less protected than Olivia. She appears to like the idea of a woman who abjures
"the company and sight of men."
Why, then, does she so suddenly give over her plan of attaching herslef to Olivia,
and plan instead the elaborate scheme to serve Orsino? The Captian says Olivia
"will admite no kind of suit," not even the Duke's, but would her
abjuration of "the company of men" extend to such as Viola? When Viola
hears that Olivia rejects the Duke, she seems all at once to conjure up this
idea of a disguise. It's hard to see the motivation here. What do you think?
1.3. If Olivia is excessive in her mourning, her kinsman Toby is excessive in
quite the opposite direction. She will go veiled and refuse men for seven years
while Toby says he will "drink to her as long as there is a passage in
my throat and drink in Illyria." In her mourning she has alienated her
fool (1.5) and in his revelry he has always his fool about him--Andrew. They
are, to be sure, entirely different kinds of fools. Feste plays cunningly with
words and Andrew is a malapropist and a dimwit.
It is perfectly in keeping with the world-turned-upside-down character of a
twelfth night revel to have the clownish characters called "Sir,"
as in Sir Toby and Sir Andrew; they are clown-knights.
The word-play between Maria and Andrew is very funny. He misunderstands a whole
series of words and Maria plays on his misunderstanding with puns. Puns that
suggest he is witless and impotent. He is such a fool that he even unwittingly
insults himself with his own words. Throughout the play Toby takes a great deal
of delight in the fact that Sir Andrew misunderstands almost everything said
to him; he is a malapropist both in his speech and in his interpretations of
other's speeches. As a result he can neither make his desires known to others
(especially Olivia) nor comprehend the desires of others (like Toby and Maria
who use him for their sport). He is, in a way, an emblem of the problematic
implied by the play's subtitle: knowing "What You Will."
When Toby says, "She'll none of the Count" (90), he may just be leading
Andrew on so that he will stay and spend more of his money, but he may also
speak truth about Olivia's intentions: "She'll not match above her degree,
neither in estate, years, nor wit" (90-92). This would be consistent with
my theory that she likes being Countess and will not enter into any marriage
that would compromise her power and position.
1.4. Once she is assigned to woo Olivia for Orsino, Viola's palimpsest of roles
becomes even more complicated. In the world of the play, she is a woman, pretending
to be a boy-servant, assigned to "act" her master's "woes"
before Olivia in hopes to gain her love. She/he stands in for Orsino. What's
more, she reveals at the close of the scene that she would rather stand in for
Olivia and be wooed by Orsino rather than wooing in his place. Viola, therefore
is in herself the central knot (not?) of all desire in this play. She desires
the prime desirer (Orsino) and to be the prime desired (Olivia); she must "act"
the role of the prime desirer (Orsino) at the court of the woman who does not
want to be desired (Olivia). Soon the designated prime desired (Olivia) will
turn into a desirer (for Ceasrio). THis sort of thing is what makes the play
fun.
1.5. How does Feste manage to prove Olivia "a fool"? What does this
whole encounter imply about the sincerity of her mourning?
Viola acts the part of a hyperwillful messenger: "fortified against any
denial" (128). However is her heart (her own will) in this task? How does
she manage in this scene to both betray and conceal her own will? Is she successful?
Olivia has sworn not to admit suitors of any kind, and to remain veiled before
men for seven years. What prompts her to change her mind at line 145? And line
193? And line 205? After Olivia "unveils" herself, Viola appears press
Orsino's suit more earnestly, less by rote (209-245). Why? What effect does
this have on Olivia? What are we to understand from lines 227-232?
2.1. Sebastian (Viola's brother) says he does not wish to reveal his secrets
(11-12), but since Antonio is too mannerly to try to extort his secrets (11),
he will "express" himself openly to him. How does this make sense?
Just what is Sebastian's will in this regard?
A useful exercise is to reach the play, using the search engine, for all expressions
of desire: will, would, wish, desire, lack, want. The play is very full of them,
and they rarely are what they seem, and often are mistaken by others.
Are Antonio and Sebastian exaggerating in lines 30-34? Is this just polite hyperbole?
Lines 41-42?
2.2. Viola uses Olivia's sudden affection for her (as Cesario) to pronounce
on "women's waxen hearts" and their fleshly "frailty" (27-30).
Does she include herself and her affection for Orsino in this generalization?
Or is she "the man" here. Lines 34-39 imply that, to Viola's mind
at least, there can be no romance between a man and a man or a woman and a woman.
As long as Viola appears to be a man, her love is desperate and since she is
not a man, Olivia's love is "thriftless." Yet the play seems to be
suggesting that such homoerotic romance is possible, at least under denial.
Orsino's quickly grown affection for Cesario has made him his favorite in only
three days (1.4.1-2) and Orsino has already spoken admiringly of Cesario's charms
in very Petrarchan-sounding terms (1.4.30-35). He has not expressed love for
Cesario, but he appears to feel it. Similarly, Cesario appears to have charmed
Olivia not so much by her manliness, but by her youth, by the very features
that make her seem more a woman than a man, just as Orsino predicted. Olivia
confesses that Orsino is perfect husband material in every way, but she cannot
love him (1.5.227-232). Could it be that heteroerotic attraction is not so very
different from homoerotic attraction (Antonio for Seabstion, say).
2.3. Turning night into day by reveling till dawn is part of the topsy-turvy
ethos of a twelfth night celebration, and of the topsy-turvy world of Illyria.
A catch is a song sung in rounds. Many catches of the period contained simple
lyrics about the good life, but when sung in rounds the words would combine
from one part to another to form salacious remarks and insults. Thus the singers
would be "constrained" by the form of the round to emit bawdy sentences
and insults against their will, as it were, the sentences being constructed
by the round, not by their own intentions. Of course, anyone who agrees to sing
in a catch knows that bawdy and insulting sentences will emerge when the parts
are sung in round, so in a sense, they do intend those sentences. A catch, then,
may stand as a kind of epitome of the whole play, demonstrating the ambiguities
of intention, utterance, and interpretation.
Maria thinks that Malvolio "is a kind of putitan," but only a kind.
He really is not constant to any kind of doctrine or interest than his own self-love
(1.5.77). Maria plans a device that will use that self-love to power a marvelous
misinterpretation.
2.4. Orsino, I think, is a lot more like Malvolio than is usually thought. He's
a Malvolio of a much higher social rank, to be sure, but like Malvolio he thinks
quite a lot of himself (16-19). He keeps at Olivia and will accept no rejection.
He thinks he's the ultimate lover, but proves unconstant even in his own doctrines.
Compare lines 16-19 to 31-33; which does he really believe? Now look at lines
91-101 and remember back to Orsino's opening lines in 1.1. Consider Feste's
estimation of Orsino (72-76).
Why is Orsino so interested in Cesario's love life? Is this just guy-talk, or
is there some kind of unconscious jealousy in it.
Why does Orsino love these love songs that talk so much about death? Being slain
by a proud woman's rejection and all that?
2.5. A long, disgusting look at Malvolio's desire! He thinks Olivia loves him,
but on the flimsiest of evidence. His desire is not even for Olivia, but for
a rise in "place": "To be Count Malvolio" (30, my emphasis).
His fantasy is not about sleeping with Olivia, but about rising from the bed
to lord it over everyone lese, especially Toby. Does Malvolio mask his real
desire with the language of love? Does he even realize that its not Olivia he
loves, but simply himself, himself as "Count." Perhaps all his self-love
is a kind of self-loathing?
From the moment Malvolio picks up the letter, his reading of it, his interpretation,
is driven by his desires, his fantasies of himself, even if he has to "crush"
the letters a little to make them say what he wishes. Perhaps Malvolio is a
kind of Puritan after all in that he uses whatever strategies he can think of
to make the letter say what he wishes it to say, and then calls that interpretation
"open" and plain--the "letteral" sense. This is what many
Puritans did and still do.
3.1. It's easy enough to see how words and meanings can be turned whichever
way one wants from the opening lines of this scene. Who's being literal minded
and who's punning? Can the literal sense be a pun? Can there be more than one
literal sense to any utterance? But how can "dallying" so with words
make someone unchaste or "wanton"? Can playing with words lead to
playing with desires? Can mistaken words produce mistaken intentions? If one's
language is corrupted will that cause corruption of persons?
As with Orsino and with Olivia, Feste seems to "have an eye" of Viola,
as if somehow he knows she's not what she seems (24-26). He also senses that
she conceals her true desires (50-51), and Viola gives us reason to credit his
intuition and powers of observation (53-59). In this play, as in Lear, the fool
is the only one that seems to see through everybody's disguises, even the ones
they are unaware of.
The interview between Olivia and Viola here--is it not a love scene? Fraught
as it is with misinterpretation and mistaken intentions? Olivia takes her scorn
for a sign of affection, just as Orsino take Olivia's rejection as a true sign
of constancy. The signs are so easily misread. When can we be ceratin that no
means no and yes means yes when desire plays so wantonly with words and meanings
and interpretations?
3.2. Now it's Sir Andrew's turn to be goaded into misinterpreting. He needs
some goading because his desire is so terribly weak, barely existent.
3.3. Just what are we to make of Antonio's desire? He risks his life to accompany
this man he barely knows. He gives him his purse. And even though Sebastian
protests that he "can no other answer make but thanks," Antonio still
hangs on and even promises that when Seabstian returns in the evening to the
Elephant, "There shall you have me" (42). Does Sebastian just not
get it? Does he refuse to understand Antonio's "willing love"? Even
more significant, can we as an audience also refuse to get it and just pass
this off as devoted friendship rather than love at first sight? This is a wonderful
example of desire spoken and demonstrated quite plainly and Sebastian simply
refuses to see it. And Antonio refuses to credit his refusal.
3.4. The stychomythic (look it up) interchange between Olivia and Malvolio (27-52)
would sound in performance much like a catch, full of repeated and mistaken
words. Indeed each time it is repeated--"thou art made," "Am
I made" (49-50) a sentence turns its meaning inside out "like a chevril
glove."
Some utterances, it seems, like Andrew's letter of challenge (133-152) are so
at odds with themselves that they cannot convey the meaning the are meant to.
In this case, Toby takes it upon himself to "deliver" Andrew's challenge
verbally so that it will have the desired effect. But who is it really desires
this effect? Andrew? Toby? And do not these little pranks with letters and interpretations
wind up having a greater effect than was desired?
Sometimes the words of the play seem to carry a meaning none of the characters
who speak them or hear them is capable of intending. This appears, for example
in 202-204. Toby's words mean much more than he intends or than Viola can fathom.
This becomes clear in 5.1.121-127.
What must Antonio think of Sebastian now (330-35). He thinks his love, service,
and devotion have been betrayed for money. Of course he is mistaken, for this
is Viola not Sebatian. But is he mistaken when Sebastian drops him for Olivia
in a second?
4.1. Just how did the play get us from confusion of intentions, to confusion
of persons, and now to confusions about one's self: "nor this is not my
nose neither. Nothing that is so, is so?" (6-7)?
In this topsy-turvy world, Sebastian (soon to be Olivia's husband and lord)
agrees in an instant to "be ruled" by her. If this persists, he seems
just the right sort of man for Olivia who swore not to marry above her estate,
years or wit.
4.3. All good comedies must, by genre, end in a wedding. Usually the prime boy
gets the prime girl. In this case the prime girl marries the prime boy's gentleman
servant. Or she thinks she does. Sebastian get himself elevated here into the
main plot, and without a word of wooing! "There's something in't/ That
is deceivable"!
5.1. Orsino's love turns very weird in this scene. First he threatens to kill
Olivia for being such a cruel maid, then he turns on Viola thinking he(she)
has betrayed him. Only at the point of killing Viola does he confess he loves
her (him) (126). But then, hasn't love mixed with death been his wooing theme
all along? We might have thought he was willing to die the romantic death of
a rejected lover, but it seems now he's more interested in killing than in dying.
This would finally put Olivia into some true mourning for a true loss, no?
At lines 130-35, Olivia must think she has been terribly mistaken; she's married
a man who loves another man?! Lines 142-146 sound very much like the lines in
Malvolio's false letter, don't they? Perhaps Malvolio had Olivia's number all
along--she loves to love beneath her, to love even cowards, or so it seems.
So Olivia, who lost a brother, gains a sister (315), Viola and Sebastian regain
each other, but are parted by marriage. Orsino gets the boy/girl he really always
wanted and Olivia gets the girl/boy she always wanted. And Toby get Maria. But
what about Antonio? Poor Antonio, his love has been the plainest, the strongest,
the most longsuffering of all and he gets bupkus. He just fades away somewhere
around line 217. He's no better off at the end of the play than Malvolio whose
love was of the basest sort--self-love.