Discuss the theme of disguise and deception in "Twelfth Night." How do characters like Viola, Sebastian, and Malvolio use disguise, and what are ...Read More
Prompt Examples for "Twelfth Night" Essays
Disguise and Deception
Discuss the theme of disguise and deception in "Twelfth Night." How do characters like Viola, Sebastian, and Malvolio use disguise, and what are the consequences of their actions?
Love and Attraction
Analyze the theme of love and attraction in the play. How do various characters experience love, and how do their romantic interests and affections drive the plot?
Gender Roles and Identity
Examine the portrayal of gender roles and identity in "Twelfth Night." How does Viola's disguise as Cesario challenge traditional gender norms, and what commentary does the play offer on gender ambiguity?
Folly and Mischief
Discuss the role of folly and mischief in the play, particularly through characters like Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. How do their actions contribute to the comedic elements of the story?
Music and Song
Explore the significance of music and song in "Twelfth Night." How do these elements enhance the atmosphere and emotions of the play, and what do they symbolize?
Comedy and Resolution
Analyze the comedic elements of the play and how they lead to resolution and reconciliation among the characters. What role does mistaken identity play in the play's resolution?
Introduction to Shakespeare's Comedies, a comedy does not demand the 'the degree of concentration and belief' required by tragedy. As a result, an audience of a play 'is amusedly aware that it's all a play, a game that they are sharing with the actors'. FN1...
Shakespeare’s classic play, Twelfth Night, tells the story of Viola, a woman who dresses like a man to find a place in Duke Orsino’s court. While working for Orsino, however, Viola falls in love with him, but must hide her feelings in order to protect...
Can't Help Falling in Love, Friendship, Gender and Sexuality, Interpersonal relationship, Intimate relationship, Love, Love and Desire, Romance, Social class, The Play
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Salinger (1974) calls Twelfth Night a “comedy about comedy” in which Shakespeare demonstrates his “fundamental debt to the earlier Renaissance tradition of comic playwriting and his abiding sense of detachment from it” (pg 242), and it is from this point that this essay will discuss...
Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare
Topics:
A Celebration, Audience, Comedy, Disguise and Deception, Love and Desire, Play from scrimmage, Shakespearean comedy, The Celebration, The Comedy of Errors, The Play
In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare illustrates love in various forms and suggests that, like beauty, the true meaning of love exists in the eye of the beholder. Love is seen as bordering on insanity, a frivolous game of ever-changing affections, and the cause of bizarre behavior....
Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare
Topics:
Affection, Agape, Enzo Emanuele, Greek words for love, Interpersonal relationship, Love, Love and Desire, Madness, Marriage, Meaning of life
“Twelfth Night” is a play written by Shakespeare. This play, mainly based on love, begins with Orsino trying to win Olivia’s love. Viola, who was shipwrecked, assists the Duke by disguising herself as Cesario and ends up falling in love with the Duke. Olivia’s servant,...
Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare
Topics:
2002 albums, Affection, Audience, Disguise and Deception, Identity, Interpersonal attraction, Interpersonal relationship, Love, Love and Desire, Love letter
“Sex is one of the constants in human experience; sexuality, one of the variables.” Made-to-order essay as fast as you need it Each essay is customized to cater to your unique preferences + experts online Get my essay Bruce Smith, Homosexual Desire in Shakespeare’s England....
Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare
Topics:
Age of consent, Androgyny, Biology of gender, Bisexuality, English Renaissance theatre, Gender, Gender and Sexuality, Gender differences, Gender identity, Gender identity disorder
It has often been said that “the clothes make the man.” It could never seem truer than in Twelfth Night where disguises and mistaken identities run the gamut of use. The identity of people, things and ideas are swept away under the facade of something...
Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare
Topics:
Deception, Disguise, Disguise and Deception, Feste, Fool, Irony, Lie, Malvolio, The Folly of Ambition, The Play
When Lady Olivia first beseeches Viola, a girl disguised as the male page Cesario, to love her, the two share a repartee that seems to question Cesario’s affection for the countess. But as Viola responds to Olivia, “you do think you are not what you...
Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare
Topics:
Disguise and Deception, Female, Gender, Gender and Sexuality, Love, Love and Desire, Male, Man, New Historicism, Norm
Initially, the salient fool in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night appears to be Feste — a licensed jester. Yet upon further examination, we see that Shakespeare merely uses Feste as a critic of the comedic disarray in Illyria, which parallels the festival Twelfth Night. The nature of...
In Twelfth Night, it is love’s revolutionary potential to inspire awareness, question authority, and disrupt the anti-comic balance that makes love so powerful allows it to be such an agent of change. Robert Maslen, in Shakespeare and Comedy, describes this as love’s “energy”, comparing love...
Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare
Topics:
Audience, Audience theory, Comedy, Disguise and Deception, Emotion, Gender and Sexuality, Interpersonal relationship, Irony, Love, Love and Desire
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Because disguise and mistaken identity is such a central theme in many of Shakespeare’s comedies, so too then is gender ambiguity, with many female characters disguising themselves as men. The fact that young male actors played these characters, making them a boy dressed as a...
Twelfth Night
Topics:
Ambiguity, Androgyny, Bisexuality, Cross-dressing, Disguise and Deception, Female, Gender, Gender and Sexuality, Gender identity, Gender identity disorder
In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare creates a duality between the worlds of the nobility and its associates and the said “outsiders.” There is a great element of selfishness involved in the actions of the characters deemed “in” as they peruse through the play drunk on love...
Character
Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare
Topics:
Audience, Disguise and Deception, Feste, John Gielgud, Late Night, Love and Desire, The Play, Twelfth Night
In Shakespeare’s Othello, the primary obstacle in Othello and Desdemona’s relationship is Othello’s race, and hence, his status as an outsider. This difference becomes a barrier when Brabantio objects to their marriage, however, it plays much more of a role in facilitating Iago’s manipulation and...
The character of Sebastian in “Twelfth Night” represents the dynamic factor in an otherwise static equation. Illyria is an immutable place, and the people who live and visit the land become ensnared in a stasis. Shakespeare uses the device of twins to resolve the static...
Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare
Topics:
Disguise and Deception, English-language films, Illyria, Love, Love and Desire, Twelfth Night, Twin
Introduction to Malvolio’s Character When we dive into Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” we meet a plethora of characters who navigate the complexities of love, identity, and ambition. One character that stands out for his peculiar desires is Malvolio, Olivia’s steward. His infatuation with Olivia is often...
Introduction to Dramatic Irony When we dive into the world of Shakespeare, especially in a play as rich and complex as “Twelfth Night,” we encounter various literary devices that enhance the storytelling. One such device is dramatic irony. This concept occurs when the audience knows...
Love, in all its different shapes, pops up a lot in Shakespeare’s plays. Take “Twelfth Night” for example. You’ve got this love triangle thing going on with Viola, Orsino, and Olivia. At first, it seems like the play is all about Orsino’s crush on Olivia....
Introduction In William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” the mix-up between characters pushes the story forward, shining a light on themes like love, identity, and disguise. Viola and Orsino are kinda special because of their complicated relationship and how they change throughout the play. Viola, who dresses...
Shakespeare’s comedies are often characterized by mistaken identities, leading to confusion, chaos, and ultimately resolution. One such play that exemplifies this theme is “Twelfth Night,” where the protagonist Viola disguises herself as a man, leading to a series of comedic misunderstandings. In this essay, we...
Theatre began as a presentation of stories and ideas, mostly revolving around festival times in the calendar of the church year. This concept was carried on in Shakespeare’s times and is exemplified in his plays Twelfth Night, or What You Will and A Midsummer Night’s...
Originally used to signify a shield or a coat of arms, the term ‘blazon’ transformed it meaning through the description of virtues or positive attributes, usually of a woman, in late sixteenth century poetry. ‘Blazon’ can either denote a noun, signifying the actual list of...
Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare
Topics:
Astrophel and Stella, Blazon, Coat of arms, Edmund Spenser, English literature, Escutcheon, Gender and Sexuality, Gender role, Heraldry, John Keats
In a Shakespearean comic setting where chaos, asininity, and insolence reign, the very qualities of comic irreverence become virtues. A comic hero or side character who relentlessly pranks stooges and straight men for the audience’s enjoyment is likely to win the viewer’s appreciation. Yet it...
Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare
Topics:
Audience, Feste, Fool, Malvolio, Social class, The Folly of Ambition, The Fool, The Play
Feste, the fool character in Twelfth Night, in many ways represents a playwright figure, and embodies the reach and tools of the theater. He criticizes, manipulates and entertains the other characters while causing them to reflect on their life situations, which is similar to the...
Although some Shakespearean plays carve out a more passive, male-defined role for women, such as that which is exemplified through Ophelia’s obedience to Polonius in Hamlet, the comedies of As You Like It and Twelfth Night explore women’s potential for unexpected honesty, especially within the...
As You Like It, Courtship, Disguise and Deception, Female, Gender, Gender and Sexuality, Gender role, Interpersonal relationship, Intimate relationship, Love
Malvolio and Parolles both appear as relatively unlikable characters due to their inflated egos, and convince themselves that they are socially greater than they are in reality. In Twelfth Night, Malvolio, a mere steward, behaves with utter scorn and haughtiness to the nobles whose conduct...
Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare
Topics:
Disguise and Deception, Malvolio, The Folly of Ambition
In both plays, Twelfth Night and Doctor Faustus, there exists a high and a low (or comic) plot. This plot division serves as a parallel – the actions and characters in the low plot coincide with the actions and characters in the high plot. The...
Devil, Disguise and Deception, Doctor Faustus, Feste, God, Identity, Love, Madness, Mistaken identity, Plot
Date and Author
1601–1602, by William Shakespeare
Genre
Romantic comedy
Plot
The play centres on the twins Viola and Sebastian, who are separated in a shipwreck. Viola (who is disguised as Cesario) falls in love with the Duke Orsino, who in turn is in love with Countess Olivia. Upon meeting Viola, Countess Olivia falls in love with her thinking she is a man.
Theme
Twelfth Night's central theme is love, including romantic, platonic, and familial love. Other themes include gender and sexuality, ambition, appearance and reality, disguise and deception, madness, etc.
Style
The play, Twelfth Night, shows the mastery of William Shakespeare in using witty and festive language. The play also shows its language becoming funny and humorous as well as comic and romantic according to the situation and context. At times, Shakespeare has resorted to the use of puns, metaphors, and excessive use of similes that is suitable for prose and verse which reflects the mood of the characters as well as the tone of the play.
Characters
Viola, Sebastian, Duke Orsino, Olivia, Malvolio, Maria, Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Feste, Fabian, Antonio, Valentine and Curio, A Servant of Olivia, A Sea Captain
Based on
The original source appears to have been the story Apollonius and Silla in Barnabe Riche’s Riche His Farewell to Military Profession (1581), based in turn on a number of Continental versions that included an Italian comedy called Gl’ingannati (1531; “The Deceived”), published anonymously, and a story in Matteo Bandello’s Novelle (1554–73).
Popularity
The play consistently ranks among the greatest plays ever written and has been dubbed as "The Perfect Comedy". It has inspired adaptations and reimaginings for centuries.
Quotes
“Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.”
“Some are born great, others achieve greatness.”
“Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit.”
“Journeys end in lovers meeting.”
