Julie Tagg| Think and Write for CSEC English A and B

Twelfth Night is a famous Shakespearean comedy that encompasses almost every aspect of the genre. The play revolves around a wedding, mistaken identities, misunderstandings, physical comedy, and a happy ending. As with all of Shakespeare’s comedies, the play concludes with a wedding. In this case, it is the joint wedding of two pairs of lovers: Olivia and Sebastian, and Viola and Orsino. The lovers in Twelfth Night are initially separated due to misunderstandings, leading to several plot complications. Olivia falls in love with Cesario, who is actually Viola in disguise, but Viola cannot reciprocate Olivia’s love. Similarly, Viola falls in love with Orsino, who believes Viola is Cesario, and hence, refuses to return her love. Only after the true identities are revealed can the lovers unite with their appropriate partners.

The play is replete with silliness, but it also explores desire as a fickle and all-encompassing natural force that can overturn the social order. Shakespearean comedies often take place in societies where the social order is out of balance. In Twelfth Night, erotic desire wreaks havoc on the flimsy social structures in place. Under normal circumstances, the noble-born Olivia should not fall in love with a servant like Cesario, who, in disguise at least, occupies a lower social position. Likewise, Duke Orsino, who is infatuated with Olivia, should not feel an erotic pull towards Viola, who is masquerading as a boy servant. The speed and ease with which lovers shift from one object of desire to another underscore the erratic and all-consuming nature of erotic yearning. In the play, desire flits from person to person with little regard for social status, gender, or other limits that civil society has deemed important.

At the same time, while the play concludes on a happy note for its noble-born, heterosexual characters, palpable notes of discord remain for others. Malvolio and Antonio are two such unfortunates left unpaired by the play’s conclusion. Malvolio has failed to win Olivia’s heart due to his lower social status and humorless Puritanism, while Antonio’s feelings for Sebastian, which can be read as possibly homoerotic in nature, remain unrequited. The final song sung by Feste the Fool adds another dash of bitterness to what should be a cheerful end. While we are invited to rejoice at the impending marriages of the central characters, Feste’s song reminds us that marriage is often arduous, lengthy, and sometimes fails to bring happiness. These departures from a more conventional finale are like a gentle wake-up call, rousing us from pleasant dreams and sending us back into the real world, where love (and the foolishness it engenders) is not always so benign.