Twelfth Night second lecture

1
Twelfth Night second lecture

• TN as festive comedy

2
Comedy and disorder

• Orsinos disordered emotions.
• Violas desperate situation
• Tobys opinion of Olivias mourning 1, 3.
• Itself a disordered opinion?
• And he an example of disordered living?
• Aguecheek as wooer.
• Festes absence I, 5.
• Anger of Olivia toward fool.
• Enmity of Feste and Malvolio, ll. 77ff.

3
More disorder

• Olivias disordered love.
• Disordered merriment of II, 3.
• Reversal of night and morning.
• Noise, song, drink.
• Malvolios objection 87ff.
• Marias disordered affection for Toby l. 180.

4
Comedy as Courting

• All Shakespeares 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?

5
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 Festes opinion of his
  mind II, 4 73.
• Orsino and mens fancies II, 4, 39.
• But his opinion of the character of womens love
  II, 4, 94.
• Olivias sense of her own madness III, 4, 13.

6
Malvolios 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 Shakespeares own
  dream of advancement? (Greenblatt)

7
Rationality of Malvolios madness?

• Contrast of his sobriety and appearance.
• Yellow stockings, cross gartered

8
More cross-garteringg
9
Tobys revenge?

• Malvolios transformation III, 4, 6ff.
• Olivias concern for him ll. 64-65.
• 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.

10
And Festes revenge

• More bear-baiting Feste as parson IV, 2
• Does it go too far?
• Tobys 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.
• Audiences sympathies?

11
Malvolios structural role

• Olivias 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 Ill be revenged on the whole pack
  of you!
• To whom analogous in Merchant?

12
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.

13
Festes 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?

14
Disorder and violence

• Psychic violence suffered by Antonio V, 1, 76ff.
• Orsinos threatened violence, V, 1, 117ff.
• And to Cesario 129ff.
• Cesarios unintended violence to Olivia.
• His rejection by Orsino 164ff.
• Actual violence to Aguecheek and Toby.
• Final violence is the only threatened revenge of
  Malvolio

15
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.

16
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?
• Festes song seems to reject thematic closure.
• Leaving us with both the satisfaction of a comic
  ending and a sense of open-endedness?