Name: ___________________________ Date: ______________

1. Shakespeare the Playwright

William Shakespeare is thought to be one of the most brilliant writers in this world, with sonnets and
plays still being performed and read after almost four centuries since his death, some even being
remade with modern interpretations in honor of the ‘Bard of Avon’. His works were thought to be so
profound in the way that they touched people's hearts, made people laugh and even filled audiences
with tears.

William Shakespeare’s plays fit into two general categories: comedies and tragedies. While
Shakespeare’s tragedies usually end in death, his comedies often end in marriage.

Coincidentally, during Shakespeare’s life a very powerful, confident woman was at the helm of his
country: Queen Elizabeth. A lot of his female characters have very strong personality traits.

Festivals such as ‘Twelfth Night’ played an important part in Elizabethan Society. This particular feast
was associated with the over-turning of normal authority, when people could indulge themselves
without the usual rules applying.

2. Studying William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night: Key Literary Terms

These words and phrases should become part of your vocabulary when writing essays/taking exams for
English Literature. Showing awareness of the playwright’s craft of language will be awarded.

Alliteration: A sequence of repeated sounds in a passage of language

Blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter: a line of five iambs
Dramatic irony: This occurs when the audience know more about what is happening that some of the
characters themselves know
Hyperbole: A figure of speech that relies on exaggeration
Iamb: The most common metrical foot in English verse, a weak stress followed by a strong stress
E.g. I am I am I am I am I am (‘am’ being the stressed syllable)
Iambic pentameter: A line of five iambic feet. The most common metrical pattern found in English verse
Metre: this is the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of verse
Oxymoron: A figure of speech in which contrasting terms are brought together
E.g. ‘sweet sorrow’
Poetic verse: A style of speech in Shakespeare’s plays using rhyming couplets and a strong rhythmic
pulse to the line
Prose: Any language that is not patterned by the regularity of some kind of metre
Pun: a play on words: two different meanings are drawn out of a single word, usually for comedy
Rhyming couplet: A pair of rhymed lines, of any metre
E.g. ‘O time, thou must untangle this, not I
It is too hard a knot for me t’untie’
Romantic comedy: an Elizabethan style of comedy concerning love, difficulties often involving mistaken
identities, an escape from the real world into a magical setting, and a happy ending
Simile: A figure of speech in which one thing is compared to another, indicated by ‘like’ or ‘as’
Soliloquy: A dramatic convention which allows a character in a play to speak directly to the audience-as
if thinking aloud about motives, feelings and decisions
Sub-plot: A ‘minor’ plot in a play or a novel; a story that happens at the same time as the main plot

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3. Prose and Verse in Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night is one of only four plays by Shakespeare that has more prose in it than verse. It is easy to
distinguish the difference between the two when you see them on the page.

For example: Viola’s three verse lines sit in the middle of the page, whereas Malvolio’s prose fills the
page to the margin:

Viola She took the ring of me, I’ll none of it.

Malvolio Come sir, you peevishly threw it to her: and her will is, it should be so returned: If it be worth
stooping for, there it lies, in your eye: if not, be it his that finds it. (Exit)

Viola I left no ring with her: what means this lady?

Fortune forbid my out-side have not charmed her… 

But why do Shakespeare’s characters sometimes speak in verse and sometimes in prose? Let’s say right
away that verse doesn’t mean ‘poetry’, and that for Shakespeare this ‘verse’ was his way to capture how
he hears characters speaking, but at the same time to bring out what they are feeling.

4. The Setting of Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night is set in the imaginary Dukedom of Illyria. Illyria happens to correspond to a place on the
Adriatic coast, a place most Elizabethans knew nothing about and where most Londoners had never
been. This distant and mysterious sounding place makes it a perfect setting for Shakespeare to stage his
play.

As we follow Viola from the sea coast to the Illyrian court at the play's outset, we might expect
something out of our favorite book of fairy tales. When we get there, the furniture looks right, but the
characters and their behavior are just a tad off.

5. Themes of Twelfth Night

One of Shakespeare’s celebrated festive comedies, Twelfth Night, whose title most likely derives from
the fact that the play was first performed 6 January 1600, on the feast of Epiphany, or Twelfth Night.
The question of gender politics, cross-dressing, and masquerade will be foremost here; we will also
discuss the ideas of pride and humility, mirth and morality, as well as madness, mourning, loss, and
melancholy. This is a play, above all, of restoration, and so it looks forward to the late Romances in
Shakespeare’s canon, with their visions of miraculous reconciliation, resurrection, renewal, and
redemption

Desire and Love:

Every major character in Twelfth Night experiences some form of desire or love. Duke Orsino is in love
with Olivia. Viola falls in love with Orsino, while disguised as his pageboy, Cesario. Olivia falls in love with
Cesario. This love triangle is only resolved when Olivia falls in love with Viola's twin brother, Sebastian,
and, at the last minute, Orsino decides that he actually loves Viola.

Melancholy:

Several characters in Twelfth Night suffer from some version of love-melancholy. Orsino exhibits many
symptoms of the disease (including lethargy, inactivity, and interest in music and poetry). Dressed up as
Cesario, Viola describes herself.

Madness:

The theme of madness in Twelfth Night often overlaps the themes of desire and love. Orsino talks about
the faculty of love producing multiple changing images of the beloved, similar to hallucinations. Olivia

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remarks at certain points that desire for Cesario is making her mad. These examples of madness are
mostly metaphorical: madness becomes a way for characters to express the intensity of their romantic
feelings. But the play also has multiple characters that seem.

Deception, Disguise:

Characters in Twelfth Night constantly disguise themselves or play parts in order to trick those around
them. Some of the most notable examples of trickery and role-playing in Twelfth Night are: Viola
disguising herself as the page-boy Cesario; Maria and Sir Toby playing their prank on Malvolio; and Feste
dressing up as the scholar, Sir Topas. More subtly, Orsino's rather clichéd lovesickness for Olivia and
Olivia's just-as-clichéd response as the unattainable mourning woman.

Gender and Identity:

In connection with the themes of deception, disguise, and performance, Twelfth Night raises questions
about the nature of gender and identity. That Viola has disguised herself as a man, and that her disguise
fools Olivia into falling in love with her, is genuinely funny. On a more serious note, however, Viola's
transformation into Cesario, and Olivia’s impossible love for him/her, also implies that, maybe,
distinctions between male/female.

Class, Masters, and Servants:

In Twelfth Night, as in many Shakespearean comedies, there are many similarities between a "high" set
of characters, the masters or nobles, and a "low" set of characters, the servants. These separate sets of
characters and their parallel plots provide comic counterpoint and also reflect the nature of the Twelfth
Night holiday, which was typically celebrated by inverting the ordinary social order—a commoner or fool
would dress up and get to play the king.

Letters, Messages, and Tokens

Twelfth Night features a great variety of messages sent from one character to another—sometimes as
letters and other times in the form of tokens. Such messages are used both for purposes of
communication and miscommunication—sometimes deliberate and sometimes accidental. Maria’s
letter to Malvolio, which purports to be from Olivia, is a deliberate (and successful) attempt to trick the
steward. Sir Andrew’s letter demanding a duel with Cesario, meanwhile, is meant seriously, but because
it is so appallingly stupid, Sir Toby does not deliver it, rendering it extraneous. Malvolio’s missive, sent by
way of Feste from the dark room in which he is imprisoned, ultimately works to undo the confusion
caused by Maria’s forged letter and to free Malvolio from his imprisonment.

But letters are not the only kind of messages that characters employ to communicate with one another.
Individuals can be employed in the place of written communication—Orsino repeatedly sends Cesario,
for instance, to deliver messages to Olivia. Objects can function as messages between people as well:
Olivia sends Malvolio after Cesario with a ring, to tell the page that she loves him, and follows the ring
up with further gifts, which symbolize her romantic attachment. Messages can convey important
information, but they also create the potential for miscommunication and confusion—especially with
characters like Maria and Sir Toby manipulating the information.

6. Conclusion

Thus, Twelfth Night is a play that all of us can relate to in some way. Each storyline might bear some
resemblance to an experience we have had or are about to have. In many ways, when we begin to
explore this play, we realise that we are exploring our own lives and the feelings we have about love,
friendship, loss, identity, and even the mixed emotions we experience at the end of a joyous occasion,