Twelfth Night (spoilers, ok)

[ConnieAnnKirk]

We'll do Twelfth Night a little differently in March--not breaking it into Acts but having a thread for the play itself where spoilers are ok and then other threads for related topics.

So, please be aware that spoilers may exist in any of the threads on this play.

[Laurel]

Great idea, Connie. The plays are so short that talking about the whole play makes a lot of sense. I've really been enjoying this production:

Twelfth Night 

Nigel Hawthorne is priceless as Malvolio.

[ConnieAnnKirk]

This play makes frequent use of disquises and mistaken identity.  What do you like best about what Shakespeare does with this technique?

[Everyman]

The play, of course, has nothing to do with Twelfth Night, but is titled that because it was apparently commissioned by lawyers guild to be presented as their entertainment on Twelfth Night 1601.

Twelfth Night was by legend the twelfth night after Christ's birth, and was the day the Magi appeared before the infant, representing the first indication that there was anything special about this newborn.  Thus the Christians celebrated the twelve days of Christmas, from his birth to his recognition.  Twelfth Night was the end of the holiday season, and therefore a night for gala parties and events before it was back to work as usual.  

It is perhaps appropriate that for a play given relative to a Christian celebration, it has an extensive number of references (not complimentary) to Puritans.  S of course did not like the Puritans because they were committed to closing down the theaters, which they eventually did.  I will try to bring up some of these many references as we get into discussion of the play.

Shakespeare also shows in TN his considerable knowledge of classical philosophy and mythology.  There are numerous references to the thinking of the PreSocratics, Pythagoras, Greek mythology, and other classical themes.  Perhaps because he was writing initially for a learned audience rather than his usual playhouse audience, it seems to me that he sprinkles an unusually great number of classical references into a play which is not Roman or Greek (as some of the other plays are).  (Illyria is the area on the east coast of the Adriatic Sea, present day Yugoslavia, or whatever countries Yugoslavia has broken itself into this week.)

[Peppermill]

---

ConnieK wrote:
This play makes frequent use of disquises and mistaken identity.  What do you like best about what Shakespeare does with this technique?

---

Does that tie at all to the mummers tradition described in Tolstoy's War and Peace?

Message Edited by Peppermill on 03-04-2009 02:36 AM

[ConnieAnnKirk]

---

Everyman wrote:

The play, of course, has nothing to do with Twelfth Night, but is titled that because it was apparently commissioned by lawyers guild to be presented as their entertainment on Twelfth Night 1601.

---

I was thinking it was kind of stretching it when Claire McEachern says in the Introduction to the B&N edition:

"The holiday games of the Christmas feast season help shed light on the festival tones of Shakespeare's play.  Indeed, the event of the Epiphany models the process of the plot:  the confusions caused by Viola's disguise are unknotted by the arrival of the real thing--in this case, not Christ but Sebastian" (10).

[Laurel]

Yes, that would be the same tradition.

---

Peppermill wrote:

---

ConnieK wrote:
This play makes frequent use of disquises and mistaken identity.  What do you like best about what Shakespeare does with this technique?

---

Does that tie at all to the mummers tradition described in Tolstoy's War and Peace?

Message Edited by Peppermill on 03-04-2009 02:36 AM

---

[Laurel]

From Wikipedia article Mummers Play:

In mummers’ plays, the central incident is the killing and restoring to life of one of the characters. The characters may be introduced in a series of short speeches (usually in rhyming couplets) in which each personage has his own introductory announcement, or they may introduce themselves in the course of the play's action. The principal characters, presented in a wide variety of manner and style, are a Hero, his chief opponent, the Fool, and a quack Doctor; the defining feature of mumming plays is the Doctor, and the main purpose of the fight is to provide him with a patient to cure. The hero sometimes kills and sometimes is killed by his opponent; in either case, the doctor comes to restore the dead man to life.

This does sound something like the play before us, doesn't it?

---

ConnieK wrote:

---

Everyman wrote:

The play, of course, has nothing to do with Twelfth Night, but is titled that because it was apparently commissioned by lawyers guild to be presented as their entertainment on Twelfth Night 1601.

---

I was thinking it was kind of stretching it when Claire McEachern says in the Introduction to the B&N edition:

"The holiday games of the Christmas feast season help shed light on the festival tones of Shakespeare's play.  Indeed, the event of the Epiphany models the process of the plot:  the confusions caused by Viola's disguise are unknotted by the arrival of the real thing--in this case, not Christ but Sebastian" (10).

---

Message Edited by Laurel on 03-04-2009 08:51 AM

[Everyman]

Having actually danced in Mummers Plays in my younger years with the New York Revels (before it became quite so commercialized), I can't frankly see much if any relationship between Twelfth Night and mummers plays. 

There are many traditions in which people dress up in disguises.  Masques were a frequent entertainment in Elizabethean England. 

---

Peppermill wrote:

---

ConnieK wrote:
This play makes frequent use of disquises and mistaken identity.  What do you like best about what Shakespeare does with this technique?

---

Does that tie at all to the mummers tradition described in Tolstoy's War and Peace?

Message Edited by Peppermill on 03-04-2009 02:36 AM

---

[Bolognaking]

There's a big difference, isn't there. between a person who is actually dead being brought to life and a person who is believed to be dead being found to have been alive all the time?  The latter situation happens twice in this play and all over the place in Shakespeare:  Comedy of Errors, Pericles, The Winter's Tale, and Much Ado, just off the top of my head.  Measure for Measure too come to think of it.  On the other hand, I can't think of anyone in Shakespeare who dies but is brought back to life.

---

Laurel wrote:

From Wikipedia article Mummers Play:

In mummers’ plays, the central incident is the killing and restoring to life of one of the characters. The characters may be introduced in a series of short speeches (usually in rhyming couplets) in which each personage has his own introductory announcement, or they may introduce themselves in the course of the play's action. The principal characters, presented in a wide variety of manner and style, are a Hero, his chief opponent, the Fool, and a quack Doctor; the defining feature of mumming plays is the Doctor, and the main purpose of the fight is to provide him with a patient to cure. The hero sometimes kills and sometimes is killed by his opponent; in either case, the doctor comes to restore the dead man to life.

This does sound something like the play before us, doesn't it?

---

ConnieK wrote:

---

Everyman wrote:

The play, of course, has nothing to do with Twelfth Night, but is titled that because it was apparently commissioned by lawyers guild to be presented as their entertainment on Twelfth Night 1601.

---

I was thinking it was kind of stretching it when Claire McEachern says in the Introduction to the B&N edition:

"The holiday games of the Christmas feast season help shed light on the festival tones of Shakespeare's play.  Indeed, the event of the Epiphany models the process of the plot:  the confusions caused by Viola's disguise are unknotted by the arrival of the real thing--in this case, not Christ but Sebastian" (10).

---

Message Edited by Laurel on 03-04-2009 08:51 AM

---

[StevePerk1]

As with other plays, there are a lot of songs or "catches" in Twelfth Night.  Are these Shakespeare's original songs, or were they popular songs of the day?  I've often wondered whether any of the original music has been preserved over the years.  Do we know what these songs sounded like, or are we stuck with having to set them to our own imaginings?

--Steve

[SusanHG]

I too Have wondered about the songs in Twelfth Night.  They are beautifully done in Trevor Nunn's film version.  In my Norton Shakespeare edition, there is a footnote under the verse that begins, "O Mistress mine, where are you roaming?".  It states: "the words are not certainly Shakespeare's; they fit the tune of an instrumental piece printed in Thomas Morley's First Book of Consort Lessons (1599)."  I didn't notice any other footnotes that I can see.  One interesting note, I believe,in the latest Sense and Sensibility film adaptation (discussed in the Classics Book Club in February), Marianne sings a bit of the ending song that includes, "For the rain it raineth every day". (Sorry, I don't remember what scene in the movie).

To me, the songs are my favorite part of Twelfth Night, along with Feste, of course. I would love to find out where they came from, and if the music from the movie is what was intended by Shakespeare.

Susan

[Everyman]

Your question impelled me to pull

Shakespeare's Songbook  off my shelf.  It purports to present songs that "appear in, are quoted in, or are alluded to" in the plays.  

The book lists 15 songs or snatches as being in Tewlfth Night.  However, I think the author sometimes stretches things a bit.  For example, he references for TW 1.1 (as well as for Titus 2.3) a ballad Diana for which the earliest surviving broadsheet is from 1624 "althugh it may be much older."  His justification for including this ballad, beyond that it is about the story of Diana, her chastity, and Actaeon, is that an earlier lost ballad titled Diana was registered in 1565, and a partial copy of a Diana which  "may have been the original version" of his Diana was in the 1584 A Handefull of Pleasant Delites.

He seems on stronger ground in some other selections: for example, he presents three different versions of the round Hold they Peace which Feste sings in TW 2.3, all of which predate TW, though Duffin notes that it is impossible to know which (if any) of these tunes S was referring to.  

And the song Peg o Ramsey referred to in TW 2.3 is also given as a song registered in 1586. It may have been used to allude to Malvolio since Peg was described as having yellow hair.  He also links Maria's line in 3.2 about Malvolio's yellow stockings with a ballad A Merry Jest of John Tomson and Jakaman His Wife of which the refrain is

"Give me my yellow hose again, 

give me my yellow hose.

For now my wife she watcheth me--

See yonder where she goes."  

I wish I had time to go through more of his references, but I don't now.  I hope these will whet your appetite!  It's likely that this book is available either at larger libraries or through interlibrary loan for those who don't want to invest in the book, though it's certainly fun to browse.  

[Bolognaking]

---

StevePerk1 wrote:

As with other plays, there are a lot of songs or "catches" in Twelfth Night.  Are these Shakespeare's original songs, or were they popular songs of the day?  I've often wondered whether any of the original music has been preserved over the years.  Do we know what these songs sounded like, or are we stuck with having to set them to our own imaginings?

--Steve

---

A catch is a round, like "Row, row, row your boat". Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Feste sing one in 2:3 called "Hold thy Peace".  You can hear what this sounds like in the 1969 film with Ralph Richardson as Sir Toby and Tommy Steele as Feste.  I don't know whether the tune is one of the ones in the book Everyman referred to.

The play is full of references to popular songs of the day, but Shakespeare also wrote lyrics for songs in his plays. Possibly he wrote them for tunes that were already well-known, but sometimes contemporary musicians wrote music to his lyrics.  Thomas Morley's setting of "It Was a Lover and His Lass" from As You Like It is very well-known and a lovely song.  "Oh, mistress mine, where are you roaming" and "Come away, come away death" are Shakespeare I'm sure, but I have never heard whether there is a contemporary setting of either.

But there's nothing wrong with your own imaginings--I've heard some lovely settings of Shakespeare's lyrics.  The Barenaked Ladies have a beautiful setting of Orsino's opening speech "If music be the food of love, play on"

[Everyman]

The play is full of references to popular songs of the day, but Shakespeare also wrote lyrics for songs in his plays. Possibly he wrote them for tunes that were already well-known, but sometimes contemporary musicians wrote music to his lyrics.  Thomas Morley's setting of "It Was a Lover and His Lass" from As You Like It is very well-known and a lovely song.

Duffin seems to dispute that Shakespeare wrote the lyrics to "It was a lover...".  He writes "Scholars have argued whether Morley composed the song as a commission for the play or whether it was, rather, a  current song that Shakespeare decided to use."  This, of course, doesn't prove that the words weren't original with Shakespeare, but it appears that Duffin doesn't think so.  

I agree that Morley's setting to the song, whoever wrote the lyrics, is magnificent.  It was a staple of the madrigal group I was associated with many, many years ago.  

[Everyman]

"Oh, mistress mine, where are you roaming" and "Come away, come away death" are Shakespeare I'm sure, but I have never heard whether there is a contemporary setting of either.

Duffin agrees with you that S wrote the lyrics to O mistress mine, but of the three tunes from the period which have been suggested by scholars, none seems to fit  the words exactly, so it's a guess what tune he was using.  

He doesn't mention who wrote the lyrics to Come away, so presumably he accepts them as S's, or he would have cited contemporary sources for the song as a popular song of the day.

Score two for Bolo.  

[SusanHG]

Sounds like a great book, Everyman.  I will definitely have to find that one.  Thanks.

Susan

[ConnieAnnKirk]

Twelfth Night is often described as a comedy that satirizes the concept of love at first sight.  Shakespeare plays with this motif also in Midsummer Night's Dream.  How does this motif differ from what appears to be love at first sight in a play such as Romeo and Juliet?  Is the difference merely because the first two are comedies and R&J is a tragedy?  Do you think Shakespeare believes in love at first sight, or not?  Does Twelfth Night give us any clues into Shakespeare's view?

Message Edited by ConnieK on 03-18-2009 12:07 PM

[ConnieAnnKirk]

---

ConnieK wrote:
Twelfth Night is often described as a comedy that satirizes the concept of love at first sight.  Shakespeare plays with this motif also in Midsummer Night's Dream.  How does this motif differ from what appears to be love at first sight in a play such as Romeo and Juliet?  Is the difference merely because the first two are comedies and R&J is a tragedy?  Do you think Shakespeare believes in love at first sight, or not?  Does Twelfth Night give us any clues into Shakespeare's view?

---

One thought I had on this question was that, with the comedies, Shakespeare seems to make fun of human folly in love.  I'm not sure if he 'believes' in love at first sight or not, but that doesn't really matter.  It's clear he thinks that human beings, in general, do believe in it, and that they often get it wrong and are misled by silly things.  Confusion of identity, such as in Twelfth Night, seems to stand in for, and magnify, the frequency and foolishness of our infatuations.

In Romeo and Julilet, I get the feeling young love at first sight is an outcome of forces beyond the couple's control.  The tragedies seem to have this over-power kind of force that manipulates human emotions beyond their ability to control them or understand them.  So, while Romeo is depicted as foolish in his changing affections at the beginning of the play, his romance with Juliet seems to operate on a different level once it gets going. 

Questions of gender identity are quite interesting, too, in these identity farces, especially when you consider that boys often played the parts of females on stage in Shakespeare's time.  When a woman (who is really a boy) plays the part of a man (who is supposed to be a woman), things can get quite confusing!

[ConnieAnnKirk]

How about looking at some quotes from Twelfth Night?

(I.i.1-7): 

If music be the food of love, play on.

Give me excess of it that, surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken and so die.

That strain again--it had a dying fall.

Oh, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound

That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing and giving odor.

What do you think?  Is music the food of love?