1. Words, Identity, Sexuality, Imagination, Madness
Twelfth Night

2. Opening questions
What are the issues/conflicts/problems of the play that are brought up in Act I?
Literally:
Who can get what they want & who can’t? Why? What/who blocks desire?
Metaphorical or bigger issues:
What determines identify? To what extent is it dependent on class and gender, and to what extent is it dependent upon attire and/or disguises?
How is romantic love depicted in the play?
What is Shakespeare saying about romance?
Twelfth Night is traditionally a festival when everything is turned upside down, topsy –turvy. How does this happen in the play?

3. Themes
Identity – depends upon interplay between perception and “truth” (but what is “true”?
Sir Toby encourages Sir Andrew to imagine himself as a successful suitor
Olivia tries to get Cesario to be her lover
Sword fight is a faked fight between a coward and a young woman ( ) Viola in two categories at once – “poor monster” both male & female and neither ( )
Power of language to alter reality
Power of self-deception ( )
What you will, will being “carnal appetite” or sexual urge
Imagination: see especially Malvolio’s imagination of himself as so important and beloved, which Maria’s note only plays into ( )
Being a puppetmaster (Maria like Iago)
Madness

4. The Anxiety about Attire
 Sumptuary laws were enacted in England during this time
These made it a CRIME to wear certain clothes e.g. a woman wearing a man’s clothing.
Driving force behind the laws is a fear within society about the role of identity
Can people jump out of their proper spot in the Chain of Being in the right clothes?
Theaters were often running up against this problem because women couldn’t act on stage so boys played their parts.
When audiences saw Viola dressed as Cesario, it was a double disguise.
Boy acts the part of a girl, who is dressed as a boy in the fiction

5. The Semiotics of Clothing and Disguise
Symbols signify meaning
Order results from an agreed upon meaning for a symbol: signifier = signified
Disorder would result from disagreement on what a symbol means: signifier = ?
Of course, disorder, anxiety, and social contradiction is the stuff of comedy

6. Semiotics and Sumptuary Laws
Signifier (sign) Signified

7. Similarly,
Signifier Signified
pants
MAN

8. Contradictions
However, England was full of problematic symbols

9. What does this mean for Twelfth Night?
Olivia confuses the signifier (clothes) for the signified, (man) and accept a substitute with the same clothes as if it were the same.
What if she actually liked Viola, the woman? (does she really think Sebastian is identical?)
Orsino doesn’t seem to care if he gets a substitute woman or man/woman.
Viola never really puts on the ”correct” clothing at the end.
Maybe Orsino really wants the man, Cesario?
Things are still pretty darned topsy-turvy at the end
Perhaps this says something about marriage or gender . . .

10. Then we have Malvolio Sir Toby, Maria and the Fool torture him
What does he do to deserve it?
They call him a Puritan for disapproving of their all-night drinking binges.
Do they cross the line?
How do you read his last lines, humorously or tragically?