1. Twelfth Night
A Quick Intro

2. Alternate Title
What You Will

3. To what does “twelfth night” refer?
Last night of Christmas celebrations that were popular in Elizabethan times (Jan. 6)
Also known in the church calendar as Epiphany, the Feast of the Magi (the “Wise Men” who visited baby Jesus)
This holy day, however, covers over a Pagan mid-winter holiday, Saturnalia, which became the medieval “Feast of Fools”
A day given to fun, disguises, and pranks

4. “Feast of Fools”
A holiday celebrated as a festival in which everything is turned upside down – much like the topsy-turvy world of Illyria!

5. Reconciling Oppposites
Dark and Light of the season
Male/Female
Good/Bad
Rich/Poor
Higher Class/Lower Class
“The Origin of Love” from Hedwig and the Angry Inch

6. Setting: Illyria City of Illyria
Known to Shakespeare as an actual region off the coast of the Adriatic Sea (present day Albania)

7. Illyria ideal for many of the plot developments, themes, imagery, etc
Illyria ideal for many of the plot developments, themes, imagery, etc. that arise in the play:

8. Distant Land
It acted as a generically exotic setting for a play full of romance and intrigue

9. Shipwreck
Situated off the coast, offered preconditions for a shipwreck
Illyria associated with piracy in the Elizabethan mind

10. Illusion
The word “Illyria” brings forth associations like “illusion” or the “illusory”

11. What is the play about? Illusion Deception Disguises Madness Love
Concerned with the extraordinary things we’ll do in the name of love

12. The Play
Viola and her twin brother Sebastian are shipwrecked in a violent storm off the coast of Illyria and lose contact, with each thinking the other is dead
Viola disguises herself as a boy named Cesario and becomes a page in the service of Duke Orsino

13. “Transvestite Comedy”
Features a female protagonist who disguises herself as a young man
In Shakespeare’s day, all parts were played by men, so the actor playing Viola would be a boy pretending to be a girl pretending to be a boy

14. Gender Roles Orsino speaks about women not loving as strong as men do
Sebastian and Antonio
Viola/Cesario
Lady Olivia as head of the house and rejecting a Duke
Men dressing as women and women as men

15. Class
Malvolio, Sir Andrew (who’s impoverished) reaching above their class
Feste, the fool, skewers the upper class
Feste dressed as Sir Topaz
Viola dressed as Cesario

16. Religion
Puritanism
Fool as Preist
Marriage

17. Honor
Loyalty to beloved
Duel
Malvolio’s disgrace

18. Sanity Love as insanity – Orsino, Antonio, Cesario, Olivia, Malvolio
Who is the fool?
Malvolio declared insane

19. Love Love at first sight Loving the wrong person Unrequited love
Love for money, power
Inverted marriage

20. Identity You are not who you think you are
Others are not as you think they are
You do not love who you think you love
Reality is not reality