Twelfth Night Notes: Page 1 of 5

Sources and Parallels

Twelfth Night was seen by London law student John Manningham in February
1602, at the Middle Temple Hall. He wrote in his commonplace-book: at our
feast wee had a play called Twelve Night, or What You Will, much like the
Commedy of Errores, or Menechmi in Plautus, but most like and neere to that in
Italian called Inganni.

Middle Temple Hall, where Twelfth Night was first performed in 1602

GlIngannati (The Deceived Ones) acted in 1531, includes the shipwrecked girl,
the lady, the duke, and the twin brother the lady eventually ends up marrying.
Changes WS made include making Olivia not pregnant when she marries, and
not having Viola strip to the waist to reveal her identity (on the Italian stage,
women were played by women). The theme of twins together with mistaken
identity is a common one and goes back to Plautus (c. 254 184 BC), with
Menaechmi. Here both twins are male and represent the serious and frivolous
sides of a character for this, think of The Comedy of Errors, which is an earlier
and much more direct rendition of the story. The twins theme may have had a
special resonance for WS, as he was the father of twins himself: Hamnet and
Judith. Hamnet had died five years before the first performance of this play, and
the themes of bereft sisters mourning lost brothers (both Viola and Olivia) may
have had special resonance personally.
Setting:
Antonio recommends that Sebastian stay at the Elephant public house in the
south suburbs which was in London near the Globe Theatre in a bit of a dodgy
area. Orsinos house is an Italian-style court, embracing a leisurely life of music,
hunting and literary love-fantasies, Olivias is more like a genteel English
establishment, with its garden and a population of servants and hangers-on.

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THEMES
Twelfth Night and Misrule
Why are so Toby Belch & Co there? Because of the 12 th night festivities, when
servants pretended to be masters, fools were given special license, and the
Roman spirit of Saturnalia came out of the shadows. (Think Plautus.) Sir Andrew:
I delight in masques and revels sometimes altogether. (They practice their
dance steps while drunk.) Ties in with the next two themes of insanity and
outward show versus inward reality. This is why its heavy on the hey nonny
nonny, and the quips and puns and in-jokes. Its being performed to drunken
lawyers.
Insanity
Via Plautus, the mistaken identities make people think theyre going mad. How
do you judge whether someones mad? What guideline do we have?

Malvolio is shoved in the darkened room, simply because the others

wanted revenge on him in this instance its not particularly drastic but it
could be much grimmer than a nights imprisonment if you were wrongly
accused or framed.
Sebastian thinks everyone is mad when he comes to town, but he lets
himself in for it because hes getting a good deal like in the Comedy of
Errors the themes of infidelity, theft, madness and demonic possession are
at the forefront. Like Antopholus of Syracuse, hes heaped with money and
sexual favours, and is suspicious but goes along with it. Funnily enough,
while hes being accosted by Feste Sebastian says I prithee foolish Greek,
depart from me.
When Malvolios letter is read out at the end, Olivia says: this savours not
much of distraction. Everyone is reconciling what seems and what is.

Inward and Outward show

Prominent theme the start, with Violas assessment of the Captain:
There is a fair behaviour in thee, captain,
And though that nature with a beauteous wall
Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee
I will believe thou hast a mind that suits
With this fair and outward character.
Even Sebastian has apparently called himself Rodrigo to Antonio, and is unveiling
his real name to him when we first see them. At the end, Antonio berates
Sebastian for being vile inside and beautiful on the out:
But O, how vile and idol proves this god!
Thou hast, Sebastian, done good features shame.

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In natures no blemish but the mind.
None can be deformed but the unkind.
Virtue is beauty, but the beauteous evil
Are empty trunks eer flourished by the devil. He even rhymes for extra
finality.
(Sonnet 93)
So shall I live, supposing thou art true,
Like a deceived husband; so love's face
May still seem love to me, though alter'd new;
Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place:
For there can live no hatred in thine eye,
Therefore in that I cannot know thy change.
In many's looks the false heart's history
Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange,
But heaven in thy creation did decree
That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell;
Whate'er thy thoughts or thy heart's workings be,
Thy looks should nothing thence but sweetness tell.
How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,
If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show!
Dress-up, trickery, androgyny and homoeroticism
Once again, not only is Olivia in love with Viola, but Cesario is in love with
Orsino, and Antonio is in love with Sebastian. The notion of women being notquite formed men, and of boys with women in a miraculously perfect form, was
entirely familiar. See Sonnets (20 in particular?) Olivia herself is an honorary
man, governing the household, in control of her own finances, taking the
extremely active part in lovemaking.
Cloying appetite
Opening theme, with Orsino, lounging about. Very first words:
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
followed just three and a half lines later with
Enough; no more:
'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
Boy, that worked fast, didnt it?
Purcells rewriting of this in his if music be song: If music be the food of
love, sing on till I am filled with joy, for then my listening soul you move
with pleasures that can never cloy.

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Theres no way were meant to have a particularly good opinion of Orsino, first
hes feeding a fitful fancy and then hes off to lounge about in beds of flowers
and to make sure his love thoughts are rich. He keeps going on about who has
the longer staying-power in a relationship, men or women, and frankly he seems
to be in two minds about it because in Act 2 Scene 3 he contradicts himself twice
over
For boy, however we do praise ourselves,
Our fancies are more giddy and infirm
More longing, wavering sooner lost and worn,
Than womens are
Saying that unless men can have a woman thats young and pretty theyll
wander away with ADHD. And then a few lines later, he says women can only
nibble at concepts of love:
Alas, their love may be called appetite,
No motion of the liver, but the palate,
That suffer surfeit, cloyment, and revolt.
But mine is hungry as the sea, and can digest as much.
Is this more a comment on the character of the Duke than any general statement
Feste says his doublet should be made of the changeable taffeta, and says in a
reasonably diplomatic way that hes bumbling about like a blue-arsed fly.
Examples everywhere. Sudden love in both sexes, but suddenly changing
love mostly in men. MSND, R&J, 2 Gents of Verona, Much Ado, Othello,
Winters Tale could we even include Hamlet and Measure for Measure in
that list?

NOTES:
Overhearing device
The dropped letter, baiting, much like Much Ado. Letters are used there too,
only afterwards, as evidence when B&B try to deny being in love. In the
meantime the bait is dropped conversation, not letters. How about Hamlet and
Polonius in the arras?
Sudden marriage of Orsino
The idiotic Master Slender in The Merry Wives turns up accidentally married to
a great lubberly boy instead of Anne Page he says for all he was in womans
apparel, I would not have had him. As if that was an option.
Victorian responses to the play
In Charles and Mary Lambs version, all reference to the Household Gang are cut
out. Namely, all the elements that have been put in there to emphasise the

Twelfth Night Notes: Page 5 of 5

theme of misrule. They find it necessary to justify Violas dressing up, because
its such an unladylike thing to do. They find Olivias wooing of Cesario pretty
much unjustifiable. They acknowledge and excuse the suddenness of Orsinos
change at the end. In other adaptations, they also cut out clowns: Launce,
Lancelot Gobbo, for example, even though they have large parts.