Twelfth Night critics

• Duncan


  "Ceasrio's feminity is a sign of unformed manhood"

  
  

  "clothes are gender"
• Fahnestock


  "Viola obtains more power than the typical woman would"

  
  

  "comedy suspends the moral law in order to substitute another, a purely aesthetic one."
• Lowden


  "To dress up, to disguise oneself is to falsify one's self."
• Bunten


  Disguise and concealment "may remind us that the outcome of comic confusion can be very uncertain"

  
  

  Illyria "is the equivalent of a 'confusing forest' where identities are fluid and unbound"

  
  

  "Viola's decision to disguise herself as Cesario is a key comedic moment"
• Gindlay


  "Because we never see Viola in her 'maiden weeds' her true identity as a woman is never fully established"
• Reed


  "Thanks to her disguise, Viola gains access into Illyrian society"
• Travis


  "Viola dressed as Ceasrio, is unable to express her emotions for Orsino"
• McCulloch


  describes Orsino and Olivia as "self-deluded lovers"

  
  

  Describing Orsino as "in fact, full of devotion to an ideal of love"
• Baker


  "Duke Orsino is a narcissistic fool"
• Kott


  "Illyria is a country of exoctic madness"
• Cash


  "Orsino's role is to parade the two human follies that the play sets out to criticise: self-love and self-deception"
• Schalkwyk


  "Ceasrio is a point of converging identity between Viola and Sebastian"

  
  

  "the woman are conjoined by the mutual depth of the loss - in their mutual mourning for brothers"

  
  

  "In Illyria, love seems to be a form of madness"
• Jones


  "twelfth night presents perhaps the most radical vision of the centrality of clothes to the fashioning of a person"
• Warren


  "Capable of powerful feeling and, most important, of development under Viola's influence"
• Smith


  "Prominent, active roles for women are one of the defining features of comedy for Shakespeare"
• Tonkin


  "A love sick Orsino addressing a life-denying Olivia sworn to seven years mourning for her brothers death. Both are "sick of self-love"
• Hogdon


  "On the early stage, clothes made the man - and the woman"
• Bloom


  "Everyone except Feste, the reluctant jester, is essentially mad without knowing it"
• O'Neil


  "[Gender] is performative and fluid rather than preordained and fixed"
• Dobson


  "[Olivia + Viola] would have carried a definite transgressive thrill"
• Gay


  "The interlocking scenes of the plot and sub-plot offer a contrast of romance and social realism"
• 1. Andrew Dickson

  "Twelfth Night continually bridges worlds that are comic and tragic" - Malvolio!
• 1. Roger Warren

  "Twelfth Night is a comedy of character, built upon a comedy of situation"

   
• 1. Christopher

  "comedy is tragedy averted"

   
• Feste as a 'mediator between the two plots'
• Hutchinson Feste Merriest of Shakespeare's fools and the loneliest
• Jellison + Hutchinson

  
  

  • 'creating "characters capable of surprising in a convincing way"
• • Jellison + Hutchinson Festive fool vs priggish puritan
• Jellison + Hutchinson He could easily become a parody of puritanism
• Cash Malvolio's major function is to supply an ironic criticism of Orsino's own self-abortion and self-dramatization
• Downer

   

  • Olivia loses her heart to a dream - Viola echoes this
• Downer

  • Most obvious: Viola dressed as man for survival
• Downer

  • The only two characters to openly reveal themselves with no shelter of disguise is Sir Toby and Sebastian
• Downer

  • Twelfth Night is like Feste's night "a wise mans art"
  • Disguise is also offered through dialogue
  • "in many ways he is the central figure of the play, the symbol of it's meaning"
  • Without Feste Twelfth night would not be the enduring comedy it is but it is but another romantic farce
  • Feste propounds the theme that gives 12th night it's unity and makes a single work of art out of what might have been a gorgeous patchwork
• Downer

  • Malvolio must be reduced from the deluded superman to fallible humanity
• Duncan - Maria 'outwits her superior Malvolio, and orchestrates her own marriage into the aristocracy"

   
• Gay - Sebastian + Viola's meeting: " a beautiful duet of recognition"

   
• Twelfth Night ' rejects the stale conventions of stylised love'

   
• Dussinberre - "Men and women are viewed as equal in a world that declared them unequal"

   
• Tonkin - 'Sir Toby's world of festival idleness will eventually give way to Malvolio's killjoy world of everyday'