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Twelfth Night

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Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Twelfth Night: Introduction

Twelfth night: plot summary, twelfth night: detailed summary & analysis, twelfth night: themes, twelfth night: quotes, twelfth night: characters, twelfth night: symbols, twelfth night: literary devices, twelfth night: quizzes, twelfth night: theme wheel, brief biography of william shakespeare.

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• Full Title: Twelfth Night, or What You Will
• When Written: c. 1601
• Where Written: England
• When Published: 1623
• Literary Period: The Renaissance
• Genre: Comedy
• Setting: Illyria (an ancient area on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, between contemporary Croatia, Albania, and Montenegro)
• Climax: The weddings of Viola and Orsino, and Sebastian and Olivia

Extra Credit for Twelfth Night

What a drag! Twelfth Night is sometimes called a "transvestite comedy" for the obvious reason that its central character is a young woman, Viola, who disguises herself as a pageboy, Cesario. In Shakespeare's time, Viola's part, like all the parts in Twelfth Night , would have been played by a man, because women were not allowed to act. So, originally, "Cesario" would probably have been a boy, dressed up as a woman, dressed up as a man.

Feast of Misrule: Twelfth Night takes its name from an English holiday celebrated on January 5, the so-called "twelfth night of Christmas" or the Eve of the Feast of the Epiphany. In Renaissance England, Twelfth Night was known as a "feast of misrule." For the day, kings and nobles were to be treated as peasants, and peasants as kings and nobles. At the center of the Twelfth Night feast was a large cake with a bean or coin baked into it and served to the assembled company; the person whose slice of cake contained it became King Bean, the Christmas King, or Lord of Misrule—a commoner who would take the place of a king in order to watch over the topsy-turvy proceedings.

Two titles. Twelfth Night is the only play of Shakespeare's with an alternate name: its full title is Twelfth Night, or What You Will . The second title references the holiday season of ritualized disorder and revelry, where you can act out all your fantasies.

Twelfth Night

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Act Summaries & Analyses

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Discussion Questions

Music is present throughout Twelfth Night —the first line, after all, declares that “If music be the food of love, play on.” Examine how music is used throughout the play: What purpose does it serve? What does it add to the plot?

Twelfth Night centers on a blurred depiction of gender, as Viola disguises herself as a man. As head of her household, Olivia also takes on a traditionally male role. Look at how Shakespeare talks about and treats gender throughout the play. What ultimate message about gender and gender roles does he make?

Examine the character of Feste the Fool. What purpose do he and his witty exchanges serve in the play? What does his presence add to the plot?

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Twelfth Night William Shakespeare

Twelfth Night literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Twelfth Night.

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Twelfth Night Essays

An appetite for love: assessing 'twelfth night' and 'of apolonius and silla' katelyn white college, twelfth night.

In William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night , Shakespeare closely transcends the idea of an appetite for love from Of Apolonius and Silla by Barnabb Rich. The appetite for love is demonstrated through many characters throughout Twelfth Night and is one...

The Role of the Fool: Feste's Significance Brad Knisley

In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, the Feste's role might originally appear to be as a minor character, but in actuality his role is of principal significance. Because the action of the play occurs during the revelry of the holiday season, the clown...

The Fool as a Playwright in Twelfth Night Michael Yank

Feste, the fool character in Twelfth Night, in many ways represents a playwright figure, and embodies the reach and tools of the theater. He criticizes, manipulates and entertains the other characters while causing them to reflect on their life...

It is Theater Virginia Brannon

Theatre began as a presentation of stories and ideas, mostly revolving around festival times in the calendar of the church year. This concept was carried on in Shakespeare's times and is exemplified in his plays Twelfth Night, or What You Will and...

To Believe, or Not To Believe Virginia Brannon

In the study of three of Shakespeare's plays, Twelfth Night, or What You Will, The Tragedy of Richard II, and Henry IV, Part 1, one of the themes that is presented is the contrast of "appearance vs. reality." Sometimes the confusion is comedic,...

The Function of Plot Divisions in Twelfth Night and in Doctor Faustus Anonymous

In both plays, Twelfth Night and Doctor Faustus, there exists a high and a low (or comic) plot. This plot division serves as a parallel - the actions and characters in the low plot coincide with the actions and characters in the high plot. The...

Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, or What You Will: Saturnalia, or Just Sad? Sanjana Krishna

Topic: One theatre critic has said of Twelfth Night: "...the key question seems to me how much one regards it as a festive piece of saturnalia, written for a very specific occasion, and how much as a dark comedy about impermanence and pain." What...

The Dark Side of Twelfth Night Jesse Brundige

In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare creates a duality between the worlds of the nobility and its associates and the said "outsiders." There is a great element of selfishness involved in the actions of the characters deemed "in" as they peruse through...

Deception, Delusion and the Danger of Half-Perceived Truths Anonymous

It has often been said that "the clothes make the man." It could never seem truer than in Twelfth Night where disguises and mistaken identities run the gamut of use. The identity of people, things and ideas are swept away under the facade of...

The Transformative Power of the Character of Sebastian in "Twelfth Night" Anonymous

The character of Sebastian in "Twelfth Night" represents the dynamic factor in an otherwise static equation. Illyria is an immutable place, and the people who live and visit the land become ensnared in a stasis. Shakespeare uses the device of...

Elusive Happy Medium Anonymous

Quoted centuries before Shakespeare's birth, the Roman playwright Titus Maccius Plautus believed that "in everything the middle course is best; all things in excess bring trouble to men." Often times, society focuses its sights on the attainment...

Loveable Knaves: The Humanity of Malvolio and Parolles Barret Buchholz

Malvolio and Parolles both appear as relatively unlikable characters due to their inflated egos, and convince themselves that they are socially greater than they are in reality. In Twelfth Night, Malvolio, a mere steward, behaves with utter scorn...

Love Is Love... Or Is It? Tamanna Haque

In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare illustrates love in various forms and suggests that, like beauty, the true meaning of love exists in the eye of the beholder. Love is seen as bordering on insanity, a frivolous game of ever-changing affections, and...

To Gender or Not to Gender Mandy Geddes

"Sex is one of the constants in human experience; sexuality, one of the variables."

Bruce Smith, Homosexual Desire in Shakespeare's England.

Sexuality in Renaissance England was ambiguous. The current common idea or definition of "homosexual" did...

Swerving Women in "Twelfth Night" Anonymous

When Lady Olivia first beseeches Viola, a girl disguised as the male page Cesario, to love her, the two share a repartee that seems to question Cesario's affection for the countess. But as Viola responds to Olivia, "you do think you are not what...

Love as Comedic Energy: Viola and Orsino, Twelfth Night II.iv Sophie Victoria Curlett

Love as Comedic Energy: Viola and Orsino, Twelfth Night II.iv

Chosen extract: Act 2, Scene iv

In Twelfth Night , it is love’s revolutionary potential to inspire awareness, question authority, and disrupt the anti-comic balance that makes love so...

Discuss the function of cross-dressing in Renaissance drama. Anonymous

Cross-dressing on the early modern stage was a highly exploited theatrical device. It subverted the traditional conceptions of gender, evoking a recurring sense of dramatic irony. Jean E. Howard explains that “behavioural differences” and “...

Comic Cruelty in Twelfth Night Anonymous

In a Shakespearean comic setting where chaos, asininity, and insolence reign, the very qualities of comic irreverence become virtues. A comic hero or side character who relentlessly pranks stooges and straight men for the audience's enjoyment is...

The Functions of Comedy in Twelfth Night Mark Carver

Salinger (1974) calls Twelfth Night a “comedy about comedy” in which Shakespeare demonstrates his “fundamental debt to the earlier Renaissance tradition of comic playwriting and his abiding sense of detachment from it” (pg 242), and it is from...

Gender Expectations and Courtship in As You Like It and Twelfth Night Carly Czajka

Although some Shakespearean plays carve out a more passive, male-defined role for women, such as that which is exemplified through Ophelia’s obedience to Polonius in Hamlet, the comedies of As You Like It and Twelfth Night explore women’s...

Intrinsic Factors and Extenuating Forces in the Determination of Romantic Relationships in Twelfth Night and Othello Anonymous 12th Grade

In Shakespeare's Othello, the primary obstacle in Othello and Desdemona's relationship is Othello’s race, and hence, his status as an outsider. This difference becomes a barrier when Brabantio objects to their marriage, however, it plays much more...

The Sexuality of Service, the Female Relationship, and Freaky Family Connections in Twelfth Night Molly Brothers 12th Grade

Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night has a host of characters: a cross-dressing woman, an uppity, lower-class servant, a quick-witted, tricky gentlewoman, a rowdy, vulgar nobleman and his misguided friend. With so many characters to keep track of, an array...

The Pursuit of Love in “Twelfth Night” and “Enduring Love” Kareem Belfon 12th Grade

In both “Twelfth Night” by William Shakespeare and “Enduring Love” by Ian McEwan, the pursuit of love is presented within the main characters. Their attempts to pursue a relationship could be seen as romantic and passionate; however, it could also...

Malvolio: The Puritan Plays the Fool Mary Anne Phillips 11th Grade

Initially, the salient fool in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night appears to be Feste -- a licensed jester. Yet upon further examination, we see that Shakespeare merely uses Feste as a critic of the comedic disarray in Illyria, which parallels the...

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Twelfth Night review – splashes of fun beside the seaside

Regent’s Park Open Air theatre, London Owen Horsley’s frolicking staging has jaunty music and mischief, but this production dances over sadness

T onight belongs to the lovers, but not the ones you might expect. “What are you? What would you?” asks Olivia (Anna Francolini), pointing at Viola (Evelyn Miller), her questions cynical, challenging. Much of the night’s events hinge on the younger woman’s answer.

The stage is full of music and mischief, but nothing else reaches the intensity or clarity of Olivia and Viola’s scenes in this light, frolicking production by Owen Horsley. On Basia Bińkowska’s open, ocean-blue set, the cast sprawls across Olivia’s, a seaside bar with its extravagant owner’s name up in lights. The set provides a neutral space for the cast to roll in and out of, but the wider world feels undefined; the band of sailors who offer gentle accompaniment with Sam Kenyon’s jaunty music, and who double as Orsino’s court, feel unmoored within scenes, not given enough individual character to be more than spare parts.

There is much to delight in. Ryan Dawson Laight’s sumptuous costumes shine and Michael Matus gives a glorious turn in drag as Toby Belch, a bully towards Richard Cant’s proud Malvolio, who doesn’t deserve the level of cruelty set upon him. The physical comedy works decently with the bumbling Andrew Aguecheek (Matthew Spencer) and the sneaky Maria (Anita Reynolds), but the larger set pieces long to be pushed further, to find a hiding place more inventive than behind a table.

As the sun goes down, Aideen Malone’s lighting streams through the trees. Queerness is forefronted in this production, but not quite maintained. It feels almost unfaithful when Viola ends up with Orsino, as their chemistry has been far more fleeting. Did she not hear the saxophone-cradled power ballad Olivia belted towards her? Antonio gets a tough deal too, as his lover – how easily Shakespeare’s words let two men love – hasn’t been gone five minutes before he shacks up with someone else.

It’s Francolini’s Olivia who conveys the emotional impact of the play’s events. In a delicate scene, she walks across the stage, now empty of lovers, to take a seat alone. In the set of her shoulders, we see a glimpse of the grief that roils beneath the play, as she pieces her broken heart back together once more.

At Regent’s Park Open Air theatre, London , until 8 June

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Twelfth Night: Essay Questions

Subject: English

Age range: 16+

Resource type: Assessment and revision

Last updated

10 August 2020

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Here are 22 mock essay questions on Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’ for students to practise their exam technique and sharpen their analysis of the text.

These questions are particularly aimed at those studying the play within the comedic genre with AQA at A level, but they are easily applicable to any course offering detailed analysis of the play.

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