Twelfth Night: The Limits of Festivity THAD JENKINS LOGAN In a recent article, Richard A. Levin has remarked on the existence ‘of “twa alternate approaches to Shakespearean comedy": the one, x ‘emplified by the work of C. L. Barber and Northrop Frye, focuses on the comedies as celebrations of socal order, in which the protagonists are engaged in growth and self-discovery; theater, practiced by W. H. ‘Auden, Harold C. Goddard, and Jan Kent, finds in the plays a serious treatment of paychologeal states” and a “negative comment about social conditions," Levin attributes ths bifurcation in erica response tothe fact that our eeaponse tthe plays i fundamentally complex, and its the complexity of our response to Tuefth Might that T mean to discoae here propor o consider the play as a Satumalian comedy which evokes Inits audience a recognition ofthe mits of festivity by abolishing auch limits in the tage-word of lyria. Whe my thesis may not pease those who view Twelfth Nigh asa comedy of romantic edveation and moral ‘edemption, 1am infact sttmptng to demonateate that the divergent Approaches cited by Levin may (im some nee) be reconciled if we posit thatthe locus of growth and self-discovery is the audience, In Tiel Night Shakespeare presents us with a world yiven over to pleasure, intoxication, and freedom. Any accurate interpretation must Acknowledge the thematic importance of festivity, and critics ike Barber, Lelie Hotson, L. G. Salingar, and Jobn Hollander have provided valuable insights in this respect.” Yet none of thes erties has dealt quite is Aunt Profane of ng atthe Univer of Mae a Macha Whe a gradient Rie Univer she eed prota at "Richard A, Levin, “Taft Nat, Th Macho Vy nd Two Akerase Ap ranches to Shheapcaran Comely.” £58 (Rug 1878) 05-18 ". 1. Barber Siizpnes Fae Cand (Picton: Prineson Uni, Pres 1838) Li tgaon, ae Fs it of Fest hg (Landon, Rupen Har, 1954) ‘oi alan fe Kel ante Mary fs Se i $png190)17-9. he ont ave Sen tp ‘ef Re iy ts te i's meray os Takemore Eva ca (Botan Houghton in, 197) Copyright © 2001 All Rights ReservedTHAD JENKINS LOGAN ms Toerffk Night is not an enticement to licentous behavior, but itis an invitation to participate imaginatively in a Saturnalia feast ‘A pervasive atmosphere of Iiberty and license is establied by the ‘opening seenes. The first thing we recognize about Illyria is that it is world of privilege and eure n which the aristocracy area play. God ard, whose vison ofthe play itn many ways sila tomy own, calls Ilyria'a counterfeit Elysiam” (p. 302), and characterises ie etzens 1s parasitica pleasureseckers, partly on he grounds that any aristocratic society is founded on ‘che unrecognized labors of others” (p. 308)” CGertinly, there ae only two character inthe play who seem 1 have any work todo: they are Feste and Malvelio, whose potions in the socal world will be discussed at greater length; for most ofthe characters, leisure i way of life. There are no rede mechanicals here. Sit Toby, Sir Andrew, and Maria are clearly not members ofthe lower clase, although the conventions af comedy and Shakespeate’s usual practices hhave sometimes led directors to make that mistake about them.* That the characters ofthe sub-plot are chemclves members of the srstocracy ‘8 significant feature ofthis ply. Olivia and Orsino are at the very top of the soil hirarehy; they are young, rch elegant, and fashionable ‘The captain who rescues Vila suggests something oftheir écat in his initial description of Orsino: ‘And then “oras fresh in murtaur (as you know, What great ones do, theless will praile of) ‘That he did seek the love of lair Olivia (1ii32-34) Even the shipwrecked twins are welloff Sebastian is amply provided for by the dating Antonio upon his arrival in Illyria, and Viola hes somehow emerged from the sea with enough gold to pay the captain “ounteously. ‘The wealth and socal postion of the characters ar important in several ways and should be established clearly in production, besides setting the action in a framework of aristocratic values pleasures, and mores, ‘hey contribute a great deal toa sense of liberation and license. Characters are, in part, free to pursue “what they wil” because they ca allord ‘odo 20. The financial conditions upon which Mliyrian revelry depends Hid ©. Goddird, The Manin of Statepe (Cheapo Univ. of Chieago Pre 133) po. 54 te, Codkad il come wh ee ee the play and the characters, wth te exegin of Ve ‘F-1Siya, in Te Stal Rtas. Cr ond esas he Tee Ce ‘o9\Camtidge: Guise Une Pron, 1977 gessa ra enpecte ee ‘eon of Pei ig Copyright© 2001 A Rights ReservedTHAD JENKINS LOGAN = impulses that are normally represed ar liberated, while the controls ofthe super-ego are temporarily held in check. What gives Ilr its listnctive atmosphere is our sense that in this world euch a reversal it ‘way of life. For most ofthe characters, everyday is holiday. Festvity is the norm here, and mare is the order ofthe night. ‘The audience of Tuufh Night parscipates imaginatively in an ex: perience of peychic liberation, but doesnot share the "madnest” af the Iyrians; in Freudian terms, out ego and super-ego continue to Tune tion normally. There are modes of awareness available to us that are not available co the characters (we hold, for example, the Keys all i eso density in this play), and we retain an integrity consciousness ‘hat the characters do not Freud, ofcourse, conceived of art a a transfor. ‘mation of unconscious fantasy material into a publily acceptable form" hile a Freudian theory of ar ends tobe limited and reductive, it pro- Vides a useful model for an audience's experience of Tilt Nigt. Far tasies of love and anarchy, given free rein in Myr, ave presented on ‘the stage, made present for our contemplation as wells our imaginative participation. Iris as though we are allowed to be at once asleep and wake; our own fantasies, "what we wil” are newly discovered tous ‘The sorts of things we learn about the night-world of the psyche are profoundly disturbing, Fesviy turns ow tobe fraught with dangers nil complications: Eror mocks the individl; Bionyais ise gos of ea 4s well a8 # god of pleasure ‘According to Leslie Hotson, fr Shakespeare and his original audience “what the Dalmatian-Croatian Ilbre brought to mind was though's of wild riot and drunkenness,"" In the sub-plot of Tuell Might a2 inthe Bacchie rites, what riot and drunkenness lead to are violence and cructy.”” Among al Shakespeare's comedies, i only in Tiefth Night ands. You Like Tt that there is lierally blood on the stage. Tt is "Signa Fc "The Rll he Fo iy-Drang (8. se Pn jn i a: Rap Pl ea cn, iat ee STAR hig pein Tf have peeps line ih sh ao maha Shiga nce by en amt Frome Aor sen ie He a ee es ewan cw i Bg ‘Ghia tual of Europ: and tierra stay othe es tnd myths of Sty Renton Reman Sea an SEI etme rh en al eh Copyright® 2001 All Rights ReservedTHAD JENKINS LOGAN » suffering the predictable consequences ofa drunken brawl in another, {hey remind us thatthe rts of Bacchus culminate in bloodshed, “There is within the play world one character who provides an ionic commentary on revelry, who sems to now thatthe pursuit of pleasure ean be destructive, and who leads the audience toward a recognition ‘ofthe emptiness of festive excess Paradoxically, thie Feste the jester, Whose name and office closely atociate him with the festive experience. Festvigy, as 1 have suggested, isthe conceptial and experiential link between the sub-plot and the main plot, salarly, Feste acts in the play aealink between diferent set of characters, moving freely from one {group to another, ike the spirit of festivity incarnate in the world of Iyeta. But oddly, festivity tel, as incarnate in Fest, seems to pat~ ‘ipate inthe principle of reversal characteristic of the play, and hover fon the verge of becoming is appasite 'As Feste moves through the world of Iria, he challenges our assump: lions about festivity and foolery; he suggests not only thatthe fool is the only sane person in this word, but also that festivity is not as sats Fying an experience at we might imagine. All three of histones direct, ‘our attention to aspects af experience we might prefer to forget: death the swift passage of time, and the Tac thet, om the whole, life likely to bring Us more pain than pleasure. Fest does not often smuve us, fr the ather chararers; we donor aienlangh with him=—he dors nat {ve us ceeason o do so. He sera tobe, onthe whole, rather an nba y fellow. He is fret discovered tu as an employee who may be dine 4; like Malvoio, Fest ie a professional, Festvity is work for him, and Sts evidently work which hae become tiresome. He appears on sage 4s though he i returning from along absence; his ist words are "Let hher hang me!” in response to Maria's scolding that hi absence hat lspleased Olivia. tis eary to imagine Feste played as though he were disilusioned, cynical, and bored. Olivia herself calls him "a dry oo," sys he grows dishonest, and tls him “your fooling grows old, and people dislike i” (L-110) Fest ie distanced from the other inhabitants Of ilyria because he is immune tothe lures of drink, love, fantary, and the dstorions they create: he seems to have known these things and ‘come out the other side. The festive experience is his trade it holds no Inysteries for him, and no delights "este and Malvolio are, as we might expect, antagonists. They quar releary in the play, and inthe las scene Fete recall that quarrel, tak- ing special pleasure in Malvolio's humiliation snd the part he hes played init There azems to be 2 good deal of personal rancor in hie “And ‘thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges"” (V.i.376, 877). The experience of dislike is not a common ane in Shakespeare’ sand its appearance here is disturbing. Feste also docs not who makes a serious mistake about his nature: "warrant thow art & Copyright© 2001 Al Rights ResarvedTHAD JENKINS LOGAN o Part ofthe extraordinary appeal of Vila and Sebastian (and they have been almost a attractive to cities ato the characters in the play) comes {rom their ai af innocence. Both Olivia and Orsinaexpliily use the sword “youth” on almost every occasion when they speak to or about Gesario. The twins bring» epecal vernal quality int the play, itis helt appearance that breaks the stalemate etalished in the ist scene. They are, ina zente, the green worl. A significant mmnber of estes assume ‘tha they teach Olivia and Orsino the meaning oflove, and redeem the ‘world into which they enter” believe that such an interpretation does ‘not suliciently acknowledge our experience of the erotic aspects ofthe play. Ics important, fest of ll, notice that both Viola and Sebastian tre androgynous: ‘Throughout the play we are compelled to pay attention to Violas shit ing sexual identity: We see her frst ag a girl, and watch her make dei sons about how to present herself tothe word; the idea of disguise thus becomes prominent, and entails the awareness that we ordinally deter imine gender by dres, by appearance. The possibilty of disguise sug- fess that theres something arbitrary about identity, and a disguise that Involves a change of gender similarly suggest that our apprchension of sexual identity is mutable and susceptible to illusion, After her frst scene, Viola never again appears to us as anything but a boy: unlike Rotalind, she eons nr netemnme er Yocman'e weed a the end of the play. A numberof lines in the play draw attention to her disguise ‘The most notable is Orsino's description ee pe Peseta ond Soar eeices ett auvsi39 CePTee gy seg net eae are pee Steer cis eet See leietii incomes Peper tadeetnantie an see era MEQSS (Septenber 972,279, Novia Halen, Th Stakopcen Ign ox York: Macmin,1964)p. 165; Nancy K Hayne, “Senul Dog ft Ys le and Toth at," Sapoe Song 32 (9:62 TE. Ket sho tieutes a rye ase eg. Mite lode xprnan ade aie rae Seton iain dn Sw Rs i cn te Ma Caen (New Yor Shend ae Wd, 136, Copyright© 2001 Ai ights ReservedTHAD JENKINS LOGAN m Orinarity, semua experience is private, and involves two partners. tn orgie experience, the namber of possie sexual parers is multiple, fir disincions of gender become les important, On the sage, we Se Sctostan erotically linked with Antonio snd Osi, Orsino wth Coa nd Oliva, Vila with Oraino and livin, Olivia wth Vion and Seba tian, Forth spectators ofthis whiigig,” and forthe characters caught ‘up in che Complesie of erotic in Iya are dizying There never, needless to sy, srl Ory; the Playwright in con trl ofthe rove, afer all andthe comedy ends in mariage; sexual oergy is channeled into appropriate rood iaituon. In Barbers words “delusions and misapprehensions ae resolved by the Fnding of {bic appropriate to pusionse™" Wel, yo, Orsino martes Ces sh lover him and Olivia aris n man, Bt by thi ive pars tave £0 slipped thee moorings in term of objets of desse (oho, for cxample, docs Olivia love!) that this nding a objects appropriate t0 pardons see ater like» game of msi! chairs, My potn that {he marriages athe end of Tet Night do not convineus that sex: Sty ever ordered and contol with regard tothe individual in Th the final scene Olivia and Orsino clam their partners. There is ne doub, from an audene's perspective, who ein cont here: Olivia td Orsi ar oer and hey pores Soil sates thatthe ina do a they farther cont the scene in the special theta sense of hav ing mow of the ines, Olivia ha already, by the last sane, engineered = marriage withthe complsisant Sebastian. Having efleced her wn wedding by shee: fore of wil, its Ova who moves a the end ofthe Phy to‘arrange the eirthal of Viola and Orsno My Lord, so please you, these things farther thought on ‘To think ime wells sister an 9 wife, ‘One day shall crown th alliance ont, 20 please you, Hire'at'my house and my proper cot (v.ist6-19) Orsino embraces her offer, and takes Viola's hand, Its important ro remember that if we sv thir scene in a theater, we wuld see him take CCesario's hand the actors sill reseed asa boy, as he some moments later when Orsino leads him from the stage. “Throughout the play, Olivia and Orsino ae self-absorbed, self-wile and selfsindulgent creacures: there is no evidence that they change CCopyight© 2001 All Rights ReservedTHAD JENKINS Logaw as She never told her love, Bur le concealement like a worm ithe bud Feed on her damask cheek; she pin’d in thought, And with a green and yellow melancholy ‘She sate ike Patience on a manurient, Smiling a gre. (iv. 110-13) thas been argued tha this not really an accurate description of Vila: Dethaps it is exaggerated, but certainly Violas reaction 1a loving one ‘who loves another is ofthis same king; she waite for “Tune” to realve 4 painful situation made more painful by her concealed identity. seems tome very peculiar to regard this aba norm or an ideal a some erties suggest Alas, ofcourse, Vila has her reward; Orsino's love for Olivia, which could give no place bide no denay,”" suddenly turns to her, That love can so turn is another of its characteristics that Tuwlth Night discovers to us; again, ic is an old eruth. Here, in a comic structure, love's ‘apriciousness works toward a comic resolution ofthe plot. Orso can, afterall, love Viola; Olivia can jut at well marry Sebastian as Cesaio. ‘Yet Dr_ Johnson's objection to Olivia's marriage is, a8 one might ex pect, lucid and to the point * Only in myth and ritual are twins the ‘heatcr—and Shakespeare's theater in partcular—is closely bound to the empirical, naturalistic world the audience inbabits. In that lrame of reference, Olivia abandons her vow of chastity to pursue the irs new ‘man she meets, marries his (her) twin brother by mistake, sd seems willing to transfer her affections to a man she does not know because he looks like the one the fell in love with ‘The crucial point is hiss atthe end ofthe play we perceive that love feally has litle or nothing todo sith personality. (is, a8 Kote has said ‘oflove in As Yeu Like, an electri carrent that pases through the bodies ‘of men and women, boys and girls. Passion violates ideny, That this isteue interme ofthe individual's consciousness strip, “Ourselves we do not ome,” cres Olivia, succumbing to her Feelings for Cesato. ‘The action of Twelt Nigh suggests that iis not only the personality lofthe lover that is disrupted by passion: itis personality sell the whole hits rane wat Nase inp Isa bene ot erodes Lo th Seu (pS "tung faba Wa anon Re at Koon Ph 93 CCopyight© 2001 Al Rights ReservedTHAD JENKINS LOGAN » pleasure that all humans share with the beass2 Myra is Beal Sheocrate and serie eaivity in Tadhg is ivrced wot ony from nature, but, a5 Uhaveindkated, fom ocaion, nota empoary reese rom ial textos bus permanent conten Te Foren of arden andthe Weed Of Athen are paces into which people enter nthe cura of he pay Sd orm which they wl Ytury there to paraphrase Ralph Berry, po eseape fom lira" The marriages tere Soot sec to ace, ‘rote lowe int commaity, oo anchors scl ie wherein pulses are rdered~-ot hecesnly reprened, ut conialid and Scanned “That ordering, in» heh society, provides more, rather han es indivi frend; the sity to coil dees ood impulcs mea tor the indivi redom rom the pram af the nconscoun, wie socielrestrains imately proet tended on the yranny of ‘ters The el raged of Mavis nthe fat tat inte poy oe principle of order ha become top and oo pervert atcommedate pleasure Ofcourse we nigh him, hee aloun ye hi explsion from the comic wort binge an end to ‘Shakespeare's Fenve Com tay snc it means th rit an itieaton pares nd chen workday and bold, ssn an rlesse, cannot be recone. Ty ‘hewsy” Maui's tree crbng ne ender none in ovr alu Ln wih his message of deat We fee nthe diene he neces of somehow making peas wi him, ad hes gone last line mat ceranlyindude Seryon i the theater, The play ioe has cnovered othe dangers of hie without she principle of order thas Malvolo stands fr; Pessina ang seve £ vivid reminder. ‘The Rabelais del of reedom (he Abbaye ae “Thabme) oti pouble when human nature canbe red; sing hat we wl cam bea orror ithe foes tat dive ve are dark In Fao Nip Shakespeare lade uo explore the possi hn ov drive 0 pleesure are imal ieconlable wath coal and moral nor ot foeies the anhesof As Yu ite which wars frm the hypothesis that people are basically good at heer. ns Yeu Lief he hirters andthe sue ave te renoratn of he won ‘git what the characters and the audience come to ae the limits of Teva. anda tht extremity ae wclence ad indaciminae pasion “The pay doesnot v0 much elu but show we sha hee are what vevant isthe sucene who aly approve, with he Inghter an Spans, the aon ofthe characters donot mean To sugges at "Barber a nec he ery of ue venules" (258, ‘ihc ees hs shape nA Yo Lief" a rom Aen Copyright ©2001 AlRights Reservedterury Reference Center - powered by EBSCOhost Page Lof | EBSCO Publishing Citation Format: MLA (Modern Language Assoc.): NOTE: Review the instructions at http://support.ebsco.comihelp/? int=Iredlang=8feature_id=MLA and make any necessary corrections before using. Pay special attention to personal names, capitalization, and dates. ‘Always consult your library resources for the exact formatting and punctuation guidelines. Works Cited Logan, Thad Jenkins. “Twelfth Night The Limits of Festivy." Studios in English Literature (Rice) 22.2 (1882): 22 Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. 18 Feb. 2011