| LISA HOPKINS | Marriage, 1998 |
| Marriage is a plot device to provide comic closure, but is rarely achieved | Hopkins, 1998 |
| In tragedy worlds may be broken and assumptions overturned; in the comic universe the world remains fundamentally the same | Hopkins, 1998 |
| Marriage is so central a topic in Shakesperian comedy it problematised the genre classifications of dark comedies ‘Measure for Measure’ and ‘All’s Well that End’s well’ | Hopkins, 1998 |
| Comedy lacked a theory like Aristotle provided for tragedy, but growing tradition made marriage the goal of romantic comedy | Hopkins, 1998 |
| FRANCOIS LAROQUE | FESTIVE TRADITION, 2003 |
| When Puritans attacked abuses and excesses of papists, Shakespeare stood in defense of old holiday passtimes | Francois Laroque, 2003 |
| Shakespeare’s subplots insist on dissonance and cacophony, or on men that have no music in them. | Francois Laroque, 2003 |
| Young lovers are allowed to leave the labryinth of errors, tricks or illusions that had been wrought upon them | Francois Laroque, 2003 |
| Shakespeare’s festive comedies revel in carnival spirit of liberty and irreverence | Francois Laroque, 2003 |
| R.W.MASLEN | RESILIENCE OF COMIC DRAMA AS AN EVOLVING FORM, 2004 |
| Comedy ends by demonstrating its resistance to any form of containment | R.W.Maslen, 2004 |
| Comedy was the dramatic form that dealt with commoners | R.W.Maslen, 2004 |
| WALTER KERR | FEATURES OF COMEDY, 1967 |
| Tragedy speaks of freedom. Comedy will speak of nothing but limitation | Walter Kerr, 1967 |
| Comedy depends upon tragedy | Walter Kerr, 1967 |
| We laugh because there is nothing else we can do about it | Walter Kerr, 1967 |
| In tragedy there is always hope | Walter Kerr, 1967 |
| Comedy occurs when there is no way out | Walter Kerr, 1967 |
| DAVID BEVINGTON | MALVOLIO, PURTIANISM AND FESTIVITY, 2002 |
| He is an enemy of merriment and hence a foe of the kind of theatre Twelfth Night represents | David Bevington, 2002 |
| Toby is an impercurious (penniless) relative and a kind of Falstaffian moocher | David Bevington, 2002 |
| Malvolio is drawn into a ‘crime of social aspirations’ | Bevington, 2002 |
| Malvolio is a hypocrite- secretly he longs for the pleasures of this world | Bevington 2002 |
| Maria also a hypocrite much alike to M, she tries to impersonate someone of high social standing; the fluidity of her ‘great P’s’ signify her desire for social fluidity | Allison.P.Hobgood, 2006 |
| JOHN HOLLANDER | FEASTING, INDULGENCE AND THE HUMOURS, 1956 |
| It is an Epiphany plan- a ritualised Twelfth Night festivity in itself | John Hollander, 1956 |
| It develops an ethic of indulgence | Hollander, 1956 |
| The play seems almost intent on destroying the whole theory of comedy | Hollander, 1956 |
| The movement of the play is that of a party | Hollander, 1956 |
| MICHAEL SHAPIRO | GENDER AND THEATRICALITY, 1995 |
| On the theatrical level, Viola still was and always would be male | Michael Shapiro, 1995 |
| The two brides to be in the play were young male actors | Shapiro, 1995 |
| Viola is revealed as a woman but she remains in Cesario’s clothes and is still called Cesario— it underscored the presence of the boy actor for the audience | Shapiro, 1995 |
| PETER HOLLAND | THE OTHER TWIN |
| The play where a brother thought dead is then wonderfully reunited with his surviving twin sister is a yearning fantasy | Peter Holland |
| Hamnet Shakespeare buried 11 August 1596 (twin sister was Judith) | Peter Holland |
| Viola= a sense she is an instrument of the play, a viol played on by others | Peter Holland |
| The play is comforting in the shared grief of loss but also despairing as Judith and Hamnet never reunited | Peter Holland |
| Viola is performing Cesario and performing Sebastian “for him I imitate” denying his death by making him alive in her performance | Peter Holland |
| Play has English Knights with comic surnames that speak to their natures, Belch and Aguecheek | Peter Holland |
| Maria’s casual indifference to Fabian’s cautian about driving Malvolio mad indicate something has gone wrong “the house will be quieter” | Nancy Lindheim, 2007 |
| Maria’s marriage is a triumph of the scheming female underclass (although one might expect sympathy for a woman of wit and perceptiveness trapped in the narrow choices offered by society, is challenged) | Nancy Lindheim, 2007 |
| “Twelfth Night and plays like it offer audiences what can be called “anxious laughter” – a laughter born out of a mix of gratitude it hasn’t happened to me, pleasure at other people’s misfortune, surprise at the unexpected, and delight in the success in showing people (apart from yourself) can be conned, thereby proving that you are at the very least no more foolish than the next person.” | Michael Rosen, 2004 |
TWELFTH NIGHT CRITICAL ANTHOLOGY
July 21, 2019