Major Elements In Twelfth Night

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INTRODUCTION TO TWELFTH NIGHT DEFINITION OF COMEDY: Twelfth Night is a very traditional comedy. Aristotle defined comedy as having common elements, such as : • Main character is a woman (In Twelfth Night, this is Viola.) • Impediments exist to attaining true love • Characters are taught to laugh at their foibles • A strong sense of community prevails • Play ends with marriage and the hope of babies (continuation of community) Theme: Caprice -- a frivolous, whimsical attitude toward life and toward love. In a very real and pervasive sense, Twelfth Night is a satire on love, at least of Petrarchan love. Petrarch in his poetry created a distance, an unworthiness, between the loved one and the lover. The female is idealized and the male should be content to worship her from afar. The man places the woman on a pedestal – an unequal relationship is implied. This makes the last characteristic of comedy, i.e. procreation, impossible. A Petrarchan lover must be taught a more reasonable, more practical attitude toward love. This is a major theme in Twelfth Night. Disguise has been an element in western comic theatre since ancient Greece and it continues full throttle even today. Cross-dressing takes this comic element up another significant notch. There were no female actors in Shakespeare’s day. This compounded the humor for the Elizabethan audience. Their ‘disbelief was willingly suspended’ to believe that a male actor was portraying female characters such as Olivia, Maria, and Viola. Imagine the continually humorous component when a man pretends to be a woman (Viola) who then pretends to be a man (Cesario). Title “Twelfth Night” is a common, pedestrian name for a period in the Church calendar called Epiphany (have a student with a dictionary read both definitions of the word “epiphany”). This is the time when the Magi (a.k.a. Wise Men) brought gifts of tribute
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