Twelfth Night second lecture TN as festive comedy

Comedy and disorder Orsino’s disordered emotions. Viola’s desperate situation Toby’s opinion of Olivia’s mourning: 1, 3. Itself a disordered opinion? And he an example of disordered living? Aguecheek as wooer. Feste’s absence: I, 5. Anger of Olivia toward fool. Enmity of Feste and Malvolio, ll. 77ff.

More disorder Olivia’s disordered love. Disordered merriment of II, 3. Reversal of night and morning. Noise, song, drink. Malvolio’s objection: 87ff. Maria’s disordered affection for Toby: l. 180.

Comedy as Courting All Shakespeare’s comedies concern the in-between world leading up to marriage. A psychic world of instability. Love as profoundly disorienting. Producing extravagant behavior. Unsettled identity of lovers. The necessity of disorder and exploration?

Twelfth Night and courting Variety of wooers of Olivia Aguecheek as wooer of Olivia. Malvolio as wooer of Olivia: II, 5. Orsino as wooer of Olivia: Feste’s opinion of his mind: II, Orsino and men’s fancies: II, 4, 39. But his opinion of the character of women’s love: II, 4, 94. Olivia’s sense of her own “madness”: III, 4, 13.

Malvolio’s “madness” His name. He stands out against the festivity, merriment. Maria: “Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of Puritan.” II. 3, 140. Or not: 146ff. Only “serious” character in play? His dream of social climbing. Malvolio the “shadow side” of Shakespeare’s own dream of advancement? (Greenblatt)

Rationality of Malvolio’s madness? Contrast of his sobriety and appearance. Yellow stockings, cross gartered

More cross-garteringg

Toby’s revenge? Malvolio’s transformation: III, 4, 6ff. Olivia’s concern for him: ll His soliloquy: 66ff Bear-baiting? “Go hang yourselves all! I am not of your element.” Fabian: “If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.” “His very genius hath taken infection of the device.”

And Feste’s revenge More bear-baiting: Feste as parson: IV, 2 Does it go too far? Toby’s wish to have it over: l. 69ff. Feste doubling of his role. Are they trying to drive Malvolio mad? But Malvolio seems to remain relentlessly sane. Audience’s sympathies?

Malvolio’s structural role Olivia’s attempt to correct the wrong: V, 1, 290ff. His almost tragic pathos: 338ff. He becomes the scapegoat of the comedy, the one who carries the weight rancor and ill humor. Should he at this point accept his comic role and laugh? But he rather bears the ill humor off the stage with a curse: “I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you!” To whom analogous in Merchant?

Feste as jester Immediately in opposition to Malvolio. And to Olivia? Why to Olivia? Viola and the Fool: III, 1: “a sentence is but a cheverill glove to a good wit.” Melancholy sense of what words become. “I am indeed not her fool, but her corrupter of words.” Viola on the “work” of the fool: 61ff.

Feste’s music What to make of his songs? They seem curiously “throw-away” in terms of their lyrics. “Carpe diem” at II, 3; Heavy-duty sadness and love at II, 4. Imparting a kind of generalized melancholy? Final song – what to make of it?

Disorder and violence Psychic violence suffered by Antonio: V, 1, 76ff. Orsino’s threatened violence, V, 1, 117ff. And to Cesario: 129ff. Cesario’s unintended violence to Olivia. “His” rejection by Orsino: 164ff. Actual violence to Aguecheek and Toby. Final violence is the only threatened revenge of Malvolio

Recognition scene Shakespearean comedy ends in marriage(s). And so here: Viola/Cesario is interchangeable with Sebastian, Cesario/Viola acceptable to Orsino. But the real conclusion is the revelation of the sister and brother, which very slowly unfolds: V, 1, 226ff. And in fact the brother-sister revelation allows “nature” to prevail (sorry, Antonio): “Nature to her bias drew in that.” And allows the marriages.

Except Malvolio His entry at this point and the revelation of the trickery against him. Does it invite him to reconciliation? Does his rejection of that cast a shadow over the conclusion? Feste’s song seems to reject thematic closure. Leaving us with both the satisfaction of a comic ending and a sense of open- endedness?