970 shakespeare, William
‘gainst my fury / Do I take part. The rarer action is
/ In virtue than in vengeance” (5.1.26–28). Because
Prospero must ultimately occupy a space in which
he is forgiving and empathetic, it may be more
likely that Shakespeare addresses his own ideas
about aging via the world-as-stage theme he traces
throughout the corpus of his work. If we read it this
way, then the message is poignant: Only by gaining
self-awareness can one achieve wisdom.
Christina Angel
SHakESPEarE, wiLLiam Twelfth
Night (1623)
Twelfth Night, the last of Shakespeare’s romantic
comedies, is first recorded as being performed at
Middle Temple for Candlemas day in 1602; it was
published in 1623. A typical Shakespearean comedy,
the plot of Twelfth Night turns on mistaken iden-
tity and a love triangle, with a fateful fortunate
ending for the protagonists, resulting in a triple
wedding.
The action of the play is set in motion when
Viola and her twin brother, Sebastian, are separated
from each other and their fortunes by a shipwreck.
Viola, after washing ashore in Illyria, disguises
herself as a young man named Cesario and enters
the service of Orsino, the duke of Illyria. Orsino is
in love with Lady Olivia and employs Cesario as a
messenger to bear his pleas of love. Olivia, however,
soon falls in love with Cesario/Viola, who, in turn,
has fallen in love with Orsino. This love triangle
is complicated by Sebastian’s appearance in Illyria,
which causes several instances of mistaken identity,
most prominently Olivia’s mistaking Sebastian for
Cesario and marrying him. The mistaken identi-
ties push the play to its climax, wherein, just when
things are about to fall apart, Viola and Sebastian are
revealed onstage together, and the action is resolved
with a triple wedding.
The subplot of the comedy includes a comic
conflict between Malvolio, the puritanical steward
of Olivia’s household, and Olivia’s heavy-drinking
uncle, Sir Toby Belch, in which Malvolio is humor-
ously ridiculed for his ill-placed pride and self-love.
Through the humorous complications that arise
from the mistaken identities, the love triangle, and
the hazing of Malvolio, the play explores literary
themes such as fate, rejection, and community.
Typical of comedy, the play illustrates the renewal of
community by the gracious actions of fate.
Cory L. GrewellcommunIty in Twelfth Night
The restoration of a healthy community and an
ordered society is a central theme in Renaissance
comedies like Twelfth Night. Typically in Shake-
spearean comedy, the order of the play’s community
is threatened by fateful events beyond the characters’
control or because characters are morally flawed,
out of their social place, or somehow otherwise
mistaken. In the comic conclusion, all of these
threats to the community are done away with as
fortunate fate turns events to the characters’ good.
Out-of-place characters are restored to their proper
positions (often by marriage in the consummation
of a romantic plot), the moral flaws of misbehaving
characters are amended, and mistaken motives and
identities are truly revealed.
The community in Twelfth Night is disordered
by all of these threats in the first part of the play.
The shipwreck that leaves Viola and Sebastian
in Illyria near the beginning of the play displaces
both of them from their normal social and family
bonds, casting them adrift in Illyrian society. Their
displacement makes them a disordering element of
confusion in the Illyrian community. This confu-
sion is heightened when Viola decides to disguise
herself as a young man named Cesario and become
a manservant to Duke Orsino. Her masculine dis-
guise removes her from her normal social place, and
the disorder that results from her being out of place
threatens to disrupt the community. Disguised as
Cesario, Viola falls in love with Duke Orsino and,
at the same time, unintentionally attracts the atten-
tions of Orsino’s beloved, Olivia. Thus, as a result
of Viola’s disguise, prominent members of the com-
munity become involved in the love triangle that
threatens the community’s order.
Before Olivia falls in love with “Cesario,” how-
ever, she refuses to return Orsino’s love because she
is mourning for her brother, an act that causes her
to remove herself from the Illyrian community and
confine herself “like a cloistress” to her chamber