Twelfth Night: An Introduction

8th Grade ELAOMMS

Ms. Slaten

Shakespeare’s Background

William ShakespeareFamily Life• Born April 23, 1564 (traditionally accepted

date, although there’s no way to know for sure)

• He was the oldest of 8 children. His father, John, was a business man, and his mother, Mary, was the daughter of a small landowner.

• At age 18, he married Anne Hathaway (age 26). She never left Stratford, even when William went to London around 1601.

• He had 3 children, Susanna and twins Judith & Hamnet.– Hamnet died at age 11.

• Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616.

William ShakespeareCareer

• Shakespeare is credited with having written 37 plays and 154 sonnets.

• His plays fall into three distinct categories– Comedies: including Comedy of Errors,

Taming of the Shrew, and Much ado About Nothing

– Histories: a series about English kings include Henry IV, Henry VI, Henry VIII, Richard II, and Richard III

– Tragedies: including Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and Romeo and Juliet.

Twelfth Night

•Twelfth Night, or What You Will is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1601-02 as a Twelfth Night's entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. The play expanded on the musical interludes and riotous disorder expected of such an occasion, which was a day of opposites in people’s dress and behavior!

When is Twelfth Night?

• “The evening of the fifth of January, preceding Twelfth Day, the eve of Epiphany, formerly the last day of the Christmas festivities and observed as a time of merrymaking.”

- The Oxford Dictionary• The celebration began on Christmas and

continued through Twelfth Night. It was a time of merrymaking, often including practical jokes.

• Twelfth Night itself was a day of play performances.

Why celebrate?• It is known as the “Feast of Epiphany” or the

“Feast of Misrule.”• The term epiphany means “to show” or “to

reveal suddenly.”• Religious groups celebrated their savior

being revealed. • Other groups celebrated the revelation of a

new year for new opportunities and harvests.

• Look for an epiphany or what might be revealed to characters throughout the novel.

Setting:Kingdom of Illyria, 1600s • The setting of Twelfth

Night is important to the play's romantic atmosphere. The actual Illyria is an ancient region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea covering parts of modern Albania, Croatia, and Montenegro. The city state of Ragusa has been proposed as the setting.

The Characters

Characters of Twelfth Night

Antonio

SEbastian

Viola / CesarioDuke Orsino Lady Olivia

feste

Maria Malvolio

Sir

Toby

Sir Andrew

• Orsino -A powerful nobleman in the country of Illyria.– Orsino is lovesick for the beautiful

Lady Olivia.

• Lady Olivia - A wealthy, beautiful, and noble Illyrian lady, Olivia is courted by Orsino and Sir Andrew Aguecheek, but to each of them she insists that she is in mourning for her brother, who has recently died, and will not marry for seven years.– Olivia may represent the olive

tree, famous for its exquisite beauty.  

Orsino and Olivia

Viola/Cesario• Viola - A young woman of aristocratic

birth, and the play’s protagonist; she is washed up on the shore of Illyria when her ship is wrecked in a storm. Viola decides to make her own way in the world. She disguises herself as a young man, calling herself "Cesario," and becomes a page to Duke Orsino.– Viola, who disguises herself as a man, is

the name of a musical instrument with a deeper tone than a violin's–in other words, a more masculine tone.

Sebastian• Sebastian - Viola’s lost twin brother• One may fairly speculate that Sebastian is

named after Saint Sebastian, who was ordered killed because he was Christian. However, after archers pincushioned him with arrows and abandoned him, he remained alive and was nursed back to health. In Twelfth Night, Sebastian is presumed dead after a shipwreck but, like Saint Sebastian, survives.

• Antonio - A man who rescues Sebastian after his shipwreck

Sir Toby & Sir Andrew• Sir Toby - Olivia’s uncle

– Sir Toby Belch is a mug of beer given to burping. (A toby is a jug or mug resembling a fat man; a belch is an expulsion of gas from the mouth.)

• Sir Andrew Aguecheek- A friend of Sir Toby’s– The name Aguecheek is a combination of

ague, meaning fever, and cheek, meaning the fleshy side of the face. Thus, Sir Andrew Aguecheek is wine-drinking, red-cheeked fellow.

Maria, Malvolio, and Feste

• Maria - Olivia’s clever, daring young waiting-gentlewoman

• Malvolio - The straitlaced steward—or head servant—in the household of Lady Olivia– Malvolio means bad desires or bad intentions.

(The prefix Mal means bad or evil, as in malicious; volio means I wish or I desire, from the Latin volo.)

• Feste - The clown, or fool, of Olivia’s household– Feste is jolly, festive, celebrating the joy of

the moment.

Prose vs. Poetry

• In his plays, Shakespeare often reverts between prose and poetry for the characters’ dialogue.

• How can you tell? This is one of the easiest parts of reading Shakespeare.

• The poetry sections, written in blank verse, have a larger amount of room from the last word on the line to the end of the page.

• The prose sections look just like regular text in novels, approaching the end of the page.

Prose vs. Poetry• Remember that members of the nobility

typically speak in poetry, while those in lower classes typically in prose.

• This is not always true, so think about why Shakespeare is making this distinction.

• Shakespeare used verse to do the following: – Express deep emotion requiring elevated language – Make wise, reflective observations that require lofty

language – Inject irony

• Shakespeare used prose to do the following:– Express ordinary, undistinguished observations – Suggest madness or senility – Poke fun at characters who lack the wit to speak in

verse

Themes and Motifs

Themes• Love, both romantic and brotherly, can lead to

excessive behavior.– Look for romantic examples involving Malvolio

and Olivia, Orsino and Olivia, Viola and Orsino, & Sebastian and Olivia.

– Look for brotherly examples involving Viola and Sebastian as well as Antonio and Sebastian.

• The folly of ambition– Class and status were of penultimate

importance in Shakespeare’s time. – Watch what happens as a result of Malvolio’s

pursuit of Olivia. But then also watch what happens with Maria and her love interest. What seems to be the difference in the two situations? •What is Shakespeare trying to tell us about love, status, and intelligence?

Motifs• Letters, Messages, and Tokens

– Twelfth Night features a great variety of messages sent from one character to another—sometimes as letters and other times in the form of tokens. Such messages are used both for purposes of communication and miscommunication—sometimes deliberate and sometimes accidental.

• Madness– No one is truly insane in Twelfth Night, yet a

number of characters are accused of being mad, and a current of insanity or zaniness runs through the action of the play.

• Disguises– Many characters in Twelfth Night assume

disguises, beginning with Viola, who puts on male attire and makes everyone else believe that she is a man. Through these disguises, the play raises questions about what makes us who we are, compelling the audience to wonder if things like gender and class are set in stone.