十二夜

Twelfth Night, Or What You Will is a comedy by William Shakespeare, based on the short story "Of Apolonius and Silla" by Barnabe Rich, which in turn was based on a story by Matteo Bandello. It is named after the Twelfth Night holiday of the Christmas season. It was written around 1601 and first performed in front of an audience on 2. February 1602. The play was not published before the First Folio in 1623 seven years after the playwright's death. The main title is believed to be an afterthought, created after John Marston premiered a play titled What You Will during the course of the writing.

Illyria, the setting of Twelfth Night, is important to the play's romantic atmosphere. It is an ancient region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea covering parts of modern Croatia, Montenegro and Albania, but, in the context of allegory, is thought to be an imaginary place. Illyria is mentioned in one of the source plays for Twelfth Night, Plautus's Men?chmi, as a place where, as in Twelfth Night, a twin went looking for his brother. Shakespeare himself mentioned it previously, in Henry VI, Part II, noting its reputation for pirates. It has been noted that the play's setting also has English characteristics such as Viola's use of "Westward ho!", a typical cry of 16th century London boatmen, and also Antonio's recommendation to Sebastian of "the Elephant" as where it is "best to lodge" in Illyria; the Elephant was a pub not far from the Globe theatre.[1]

Like many of Shakespeare's comedies, this one centres on mistaken identity. The leading character, Viola, is shipwrecked on the shores of Illyria during the opening scenes. She loses contact with her twin brother, Sebastian, whom she believes dead. Posing as a boy and masquerading as a young castrato under the name Cesario, she enters the service of Duke Orsino. Orsino is in love with the bereaved Lady Olivia, whose father and brother have recently died, and will having nothing to do with any suitors, the Duke included. Orsino decides to use "Cesario" as an intermediary. Olivia, believing Viola to be a man, falls in love with this handsome and eloquent messenger. Viola, in turn, has fallen in love with the Duke, who also believes Viola is a man, and who regards her as his confidant.

Much of the play is taken up with the comic subplot, in which several characters conspire to make Olivia's pompous head steward, Malvolio, believe that his lady Olivia wishes to marry him. It involves Olivia's uncle, Sir Toby Belch; another would-be suitor, a silly squire named Sir Andrew Aguecheek; her servants Maria and Fabian; and her father's favourite fool, Feste. Sir Toby and Sir Andrew disturb the peace of their lady's house by keeping late hours and perpetually singing catches at the very top of their drunken voices, prompting Malvolio to chastise them. This is the basis for Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Maria's revenge on Malvolio.

Maria, Sir Toby, Sir Andrew Aguecheek and company convince Malvolio that Olivia is secretly in love with him, and write a letter in Olivia's hand, asking Malvolio to wear yellow stockings cross-gartered, be rude to the rest of the servants, and to smile in all circumstances. Olivia, saddened by Viola's attitude to her, asks for her chief steward, and is shocked by a Malvolio who has seemingly lost his mind. She leaves him to the contrivances of his tormentors.

Pretending that Malvolio is insane, they lock him up in a dark cellar (a common "treatment" for the mentally ill), with a slit for light. Feste visits him to mock his "insanity", once disguised as a priest, and again as himself. At the end of the play Malvolio learns of their conspiracy and storms off promising revenge, but the Duke dispatches someone (probably Fabian) to pacify him.

Meanwhile Sebastian, Viola's brother, believed deeased, arrives on the scene, sowing confusion. Mistaking him for Viola, Olivia asks him to marry her, and they are secretly united. Finally, when the twins appear in the presence of both Olivia and the Duke, there is more wonder and awe at their similarity, at which point Viola reveals she is really a female and that Sebastian is her lost twin brother. The play ends in a declaration of marriage between the Duke and Viola, and it is learned that Toby has married Maria.

Critical Response

Twelfth Night is noted as one of Shakespeare's most studied and best loved plays: the twin-based comedy of cross-dressing and mistaken identity is accessible to even novice Shakespeare scholars. However, the play has also garnered much critical attention for its nuanced and sometimes elusive treatment of issues of gender, ambition, and love.

The actual Elizabethan festival of Twelfth Night would involve the antics of a Lord of Misrule, who before leaving his temporary position of authority, would call for entertainment; the play has been regarded as preserving this festive atmosphere.[2] This leads to the general inversion of the order of things, most notably gender roles.[3] Malvolio can be regarded as an adversary of festive enjoyment and community.[4]

Viola is not alone among Shakespeare's cross-dressing heroines; in Shakespeare's theater, convention dictated that adolescent boys play the roles of female characters, creating humour in the multiplicity of disguise found in a female character who for a while pretended at masculinity.[5] Her cross dressing enables Viola to fulfil usually male roles, such as acting as a messenger between Orsino and Olivia, as well as being Orsino's confidant. She does not, however, use her disguise to enable her to intervene directly in the plot (unlike other Shakespearean heroines such as Rosalind in As You Like It and Portia in The Merchant of Venice), remaining someone who allows "Time" to untangle the plot.[6] Viola's persistence in transvestism through her betrothal in the final scene of the play often engenders a discussion of the possibly homoerotic relationship between Viola and Orsino. Her impassioned speech to Orsino, in which she describes an imaginary sister who "sat like patience on a monument, / Smiling at grief" for her love, likewise causes many critics to consider Viola's attitude of suffering in her love as a sign of the perceived weakness of the feminine (2.4).

[edit] Metatheatre

At Olivia's first meeting with 'Cesario' (Viola) in Iv she asks her "Are you a comedian?" (ie an Elizabethan term for 'actor'[7]) Viola's reply, "I am not that I play", epitomising her adoption of the role of Cesario, is regarded as one of several references to theatricality and 'playing' within the play.[8] The plot against Malvolio revolves around these ideas, and Fabian remarks in IIIiv: "If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction".[9] In IVii, Feste plays both parts in the 'play' for Malvolio's benefit, alternating between adopting Sir Topas' voice and that of himself. He finishes by likening himself to "the old Vice" of English Morality plays.[10] Other influences of the English folk tradition can be seen in Feste's songs and dialogue, such as his final song in Act Five.[11] The last line of this song, "And I'll strive to please you every day", is a direct echo of similar lines from several English folk plays.