Imaginative Geography in Twelfth Night

Christy DesmetUniversity of Georgia

1.2 of Twelfth NightVIOLA: What country, friends, is this?

CAPTAIN: This is Illyria, lady.

VIOLA: And what should I do in Illyria?My brother he is in Elysium.Perchance he is not drowned.—What think you, sailors?

CAPTAIN: It is perchance that you yourself were saved.

VIOLA: O, my poor brother! And so perchance may he be. (Twelfth Night, 1.2, Folger Digital Texts)

Abraham Ortelius, Map of Adriatic Sea

Shipwreck in Trevor Nunn Twelfth Night

Sebastian Abandons Ship inTrevor Nunn Twelfth Night

Brother and Sister Separated in Trevor Nunn Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night 1.2.9-18

CAPTAIN: True, madam. And to comfort you with chance,Assure yourself, after our ship did split,When you and those poor number saved with youHung on our driving boat, I saw your brother,Most provident in peril, bind himself(Courage and hope both teaching him the practice)To a strong mast that lived upon the sea,Where, like Arion on the dolphin’s back,I saw him hold acquaintance with the wavesSo long as I could see.

Arion astride a dolphin

“The mind of wild beasts is not so savage as that of greedy man.”

Alciato at Glasgow: http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/alciato/facsimile.php?emb=A31b011

Twelfth Night (FDT)

Antonio: A witchcraft drew me hither.That most ingrateful boy there by your sideFrom the rude sea’s enraged and foamy mouthDid I redeem; a wrack past hope he was. (5.1.69-72)

Orsino: Be not amazed; right noble is his blood.If this be so, as yet the glass seems true,I shall have share in this most happy wrack.—Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand timesThou never shouldst love woman like to me. (5.1.276-80)

Northrop Frye, “The Argument of Comedy”

Green World

Judi Dench as Titania with Bottom at the Rose Theatre, Kingston

Kenneth Branagh Twelfth Night (1988)

Entering Illyria: John Sichel TN (1969)

Trevor Nunn TN (1996)

Indoor vs. Outdoors in Trevor Nunn TN

“Upstairs/Downstairs”

John Sichel Twelfth Night (1969)

“Upstairs/Downstairs”

Trevor Nunn Twelfth Night (1996)

Festive Space

Kenneth Branagh TN (1988)

Garden as Liminal Space

Charles Kent, Silent Twelfth Night (1910)

Lady and the Unicorn, Musee Cluny, Paris (Wikipedia)

Leonardo da Vince , Annunciation , Uffizi, Florence (Wikipedia)

Romance of the Rose (British Library)

Then let thy love be younger than thyself,Or thy affection cannot hold the bent.For women are as roses, whose fair flower,Being once displayed, doth fall that very hour. Orsino to Viola 2.5.143

Viola as Liminal CharacerMALVOLIO: Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy—as a squash is before ’tis apeascod, or a codling when ’tis almost an apple. ’Tiswith him in standing water, between boy and man.He is very well-favored, and he speaks very shrewishly. One would think his mother’s milk werescarce out of him.

(Twelfth Night, 1.5.155 ff.)