WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

REGARDED AS THE
GREATEST ENGLISH
PLAYWRIGHT
 A BIOGRAPHY OF THE ‘BARD OF AVON’
William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, in
April 1564. His father was a glove-maker, and Shakespeare
received no more than a grammar school education. He married
Anne Hathaway in 1582, but left his family behind around 1590 and
moved to London, where he became an actor and playwright. He
was an immediate success: Shakespeare soon became the most
popular playwright of the day as well as a part-owner of the Globe
Theater. His theater troupe was adopted by King James as the
King's Men in 1603. Shakespeare retired as a rich and prominent
man to Stratford-upon-Avon in 1613, and died three years later.
 SHAKESPEARE- THE GREAT ADAPTER

Shakespeare is regarded as a great writer but not

because he was an original inventor of stories. His
plays are nearly all adaptations of stories he found in
books, or in history- or in somebody else’s play. His
originally came from the way he used this material. He
changed his sources to suit himself and his audiences
and was never afraid to change the facts if they didn’t
suit him.
 SHAKESPEARE- THE GREAT REALIST
What Shakespeare added to his source material was his insight
into people and society. He understood what makes people tick
and what males society hold together or fall apart. He showed
how people behave-and why- by showing their motives and their
reactions to experiences such as love, loss, dreams, fears,
threats and doubts. These have not changed even if we think
science and technology make us different from people in
Shakespeare’s day. He was also realistic. He avoided
stereotypes, preferring to show people as a complex mixture of
changing emotions.
 SHAKESPEARE- THE LANGUAGE MAGICIAN
Shakespeare’s cleverness with language is not
just his ability to write beautiful poetry. He also
wrote amusing dialogue, common slang, rude
insults and the thoughts of people under
pressure. He wrote script that uses the sounds of
words to convey emotion, and the associations of
words to create vivid images in our heads.
QUICK GAME!

ARE THESE LINES

FROM TAYLOR
SWIFT OR
SHAKESPEARE?
SHAKESPEAREAN
ELEMENTS:
DISGUISE
Characters often resort to
disguise in Shakespeare’s
plays. This is a plot device
that the Bard uses over and
over again ... but why?
 1. TO DISGUISE GENDER

One of the most common plot lines used in relation to disguise

is when a woman such as Rosalind in As You Like It disguises
herself as a man.
This plot device allows Shakespeare to explore gender roles
as with Portia in The Merchant of Venice who, when dressed
as a man, is able to solve the problem of Shylock and
demonstrate that she is just as bright as the male characters.
 2. TO CREATE DRAMATIC IRONY

Dramatic irony is when the audience is party to

knowledge that the characters in the play are not. Often,
humor can be derived from this. For example, when Olivia in
Twelfth Night is in love with Viola (who is dressed as her
brother Sebastian), we know that she is in fact in love with a
woman. This is amusing but it also allows the audience to
feel pity for Olivia, who does not have all of the information.
 2. TO SHED ONE’S INHIBITIONS BY ATTENDING
MASQUE BALLS
The use of Masques during festivals and carnivals was commonplace in
Elizabethan society both among the aristocracy and the common
classes.
Originating from Italy, Masques appear regularly in Shakespeare’s plays.
There is a masked ball in Romeo and Juliet, and in Midsummer Night’s
Dream there is a masque dance to celebrate the wedding of the Duke to
the Amazon Queen.Masque balls allowed people to behave differently to
how they may do in everyday life. They could get away with more
merriment and no one would be sure of their true identity.
 SAY WHAT?
Sometimes members of the Elizabethan
audience would disguise themselves.
Especially the women because even though
Queen Elizabeth herself loved the theater, it
was generally considered that a woman
who wanted to see a play was of ill repute.
She may even be considered to be a
prostitute, so masks and other forms of
disguise were used by the audience members
themselves.
 AT A GLANCE
Full Title: Twelfth Night, or What You Will
When Written: c. 1601
Where Written: England
When Published: 1623
Literary Period: The Renaissance
Genre: Comedy
Setting: Illyria (an ancient area on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, between
contemporary Croatia, Albania, and Montenegro)
Climax: The weddings of Viola and Orsino, and Sebastian and Olivia
 ROMANCE IS IN THE AIR
Twelfth Night is one of the best
romantic comedies by Shakespeare.
It can be compared with The
Merchant of Venice, Much Ado
about Nothing and As you Like It. It
deals with the light and trivial
incidents of life. It combines
romantic elements with comic
elements. It has a happy ending.
 WHAT A DRAG!
Twelfth Night is sometimes called a "transvestite comedy" for
the obvious reason that its central character is a young woman,
Viola, who disguises herself as a pageboy, Cesario. In
Shakespeare's time, Viola's part, like all the parts in Twelfth
Night, would have been played by a man, because women
were not allowed to act. So, originally, "Cesario" would probably
have been a boy, dressed up as a woman, dressed up as a
man.
 WHAT’S UP WITH THE TITLE?
Twelfth Night takes its name from an English holiday celebrated on January
5, the so-called "twelfth night of Christmas" or the Eve of the Feast of the
Epiphany. In Renaissance England, Twelfth Night was known as a "feast of
misrule." For the day, kings and nobles were to be treated as peasants, and
peasants as kings and nobles. At the center of the Twelfth Night feast was a
large cake with a bean or coin baked into it and served to the assembled
company; the person whose slice of cake contained it became King Bean,
the Christmas King, or Lord of Misrule—a commoner who would take the
place of a king in order to watch over the topsy-turvy proceedings.
 TWO TITLES
Twelfth Night is the only play of Shakespeare's with an
alternate name: its full title is Twelfth Night, or What You
Will. The second title references the holiday season of
ritualized disorder and revelry, where you can act out all
your fantasies. It could also be considered as a playful
title that gives the audience the option to give it any title
that they might wish to give it, or to take the whole play
in any spirit in which they might like to take it.
 WHAT THE LOVE?!
In the kingdom of Illyria, the Duke Orsino laments over his unrequited
love for the Lady Olivia, who is in mourning for her brother and has
refused to see anyone for seven years.

Meanwhile, a ship has been wrecked by a storm off the coast, casting the
young noblewoman Viola onto shore. Finding herself alone with the
Captain, Viola assumes that her twin brother, Sebastian, with whom she
was traveling, is dead. Grieving, she learns from the Captain—who, by
chance, was born in Illyria—about the region, and decides that she would
like to conceal her identity and offer her services to this Lady. However,
after the Captain informs Viola that Olivia refuses to see anyone. Viola
resolves to conceal her identity—she dresses up as a pageboy, Cesario,
and go work for Orsino. The Captain agrees to help.
 WHAT THE LOVE?!
Viola advances quickly in Orsino's household. However, she
soon finds herself falling in love with Orsino—a love which
she cannot pursue, since Orsino believes her to be (the
male) Cesario. At the same time, when Orsino sends Cesario
to Olivia's house to woo her in his stead, Olivia becomes
passionately attracted to "Cesario." Only Viola understands
the love-triangle that her disguise has brought about: she
loves Orsino, Orsino loves Olivia, and Olivia loves her.
None of these loves can be fulfilled.
 ACT 1 SCENE 1

Duke Orsino lounges in his palace in Illyria, alternately

praising and lamenting the nature of love. First, he asks
his attendants to serenade him with music. Then, he
makes them stop. Love, he says, like the ocean,
consumes whatever is cast into it. He adds that it is so
"full of shapes," constantly changing its objects, that it is
like a hallucination.
ACT 1 SCENE 1
 ANALYSIS AND EXPLANATION
The play opens with Orsino, the Duke of Illyria, listening to music
and lamenting about love. Twelfth Night is a play about excess, as
during Shakespeare's time, people would celebrate Christmas for
twelve nights, partying and drinking. It is also a play about the
overbearing nature of love and the madness that comes from it.
From the very first line of the play, Orsino's language is over the
top. He desires so much love that it makes him melancholy, even
sick. As he sits in his court, he stops the music playing in the
background, claiming it makes him too sad to listen to. Listening to
music and spewing cliches of love, Orsino seems to be
performing the act of the saddened lover. Yet the irony here is
that he also seems to be enjoying it. We will see that Orsino's
vision of "love" is both fickle and performative. He loves the idea of
love but may not truly know what it feels like yet.
 ACT 1 SCENE 1

What could be a
Curio: Will you go
reason Curio
hunt, my lord? asks this
question?
 ACT 1 SCENE 1

Duke: Why so I do, the noblest that I have.

O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,
Methought she purged the air of pestilence.
That instant was I turned into a hart,
And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,
E'er since pursue me.
 WHAT IS THE ALLUSION?
While Curio does indeed mean a
deer Orsino puns on ‘hard’ and
declares that at that very moment
he saw his love and was turned into
a hart, and pursued relentlessly by
his desires- allusion to the
mythological story of Actaeon who
was turned into a deer after seeing
the goddess Artemis bathing naked
and was hunted down my his own
hounds.
 ACT 1 SCENE 2

Somewhere on the coast, Viola, a young noblewoman, a

Captain, and several sailors, have just washed ashore
from a shipwreck. Viola asks what country they are in, to
which the Captain responds, "Illyria." She then cries out
that her brother is "in Elysium"—the land of the dead
(1.2.4). The Captain reassures her that he last saw her
brother, Sebastian, alive, clutching the mast of their ship
during the storm. Viola thanks the Captain for granting her
some hope.
ACT 1 SCENE 2
 APPEARANCE VS. REALITY
Viola’s declaration of trust in the Captain, and her outlining
of her plan, reveal another major theme of the
play-appearance vs. reality. Shakespeare was concerned
with the disjunction between outward appearances and
internal reality. In this play that disjunction becomes not just
a theme but a mainspring of the action, as character after
character mistake external show for inward nature. Viola
expresses the theme as she comments on the Captain’s
inward and outward appearance.
 DISGUISE

Viola’s decision to use disguise

by hiding her gender behind the
outward appearance of a man
causes confusion to arise as
character after character
mistake her identity. However, it
will prove to bring much humour
to the play.
 ACT 1 SCENE 3
At Olivia's palace, Olivia's crass uncle, Sir Toby
Belch, has just returned from a night of drinking.
Olivia's serving woman, Maria, scolds him in a
flirting way: Olivia has been complaining about Sir
Toby's bad behavior and about Sir Andrew
Aguecheek, the foolish knight he brought to Illyria
to woo her. Sir Toby protests: Sir Andrew is
tall—and rich! Maria scoffs that this makes no
difference. The two are still quarreling when Sir
Andrew enters the room.
 ANALYSIS AND EXPLANATION

The characters introduced here

represent a "low" world of servants,
parallel to the nobles'. The flirtation
between Maria and Toby, and the
practical criteria that Toby applies to
Andrew as a suitor (he is tall and
rich), both contrast with the flowery
love-melancholy Orsino exhibited in
Act 1 Scene 1
LITERARY DEVICE ALERT
EXAMPLES

A horse is a very stable animal.

 EXAMPLES
At a local farmer’s market, a woman is working at a fruit stand. A man walks up…
Man: “Wow, those are some huge melons you’ve got there. Did you grow them
yourself? Can I see one?”
Woman: “EXCUSE ME?”
Man points to a pile of watermelons behind her
Man: “The watermelons, can I see one?”
Woman: “Oh, yes, of course. Here you go.”
What happened in this scene is a common scenario in comedy. The man meant
one thing, but the language he used formed a double entendre, and the woman
thought he was saying something inappropriate!
 Can you
think of any
Caribbean
song lyric
that makes
use of
double
entendre?
 DOUBLE
ENTENDRE
IN
TWELFTH
NIGHT ACT
3
SIR TOBY BELCH

Accost her, Sir Andrew, accost

SIR ANDRE

What’s that?
Sir Andrew and Sir Toby greet each other affectionately. Sir Toby jokes that Sir
Andrew should "accost" Maria—"woo her, assail her" (1.3.54)—setting off a volley
of double entendres in which Maria easily bests Sir Andrew, Maria then departs.
Accost- to approach and speak to boldly or aggressively
Accost- to solicit for sexual purposes (of a prostitute etc.)
These vulgar puns
contrast with Orsino's
poetic musings. The
low characters are far
less genteel and more
overtly sexual in their
games of love than
the nobles are.
SIR ANDREW
[To Maria] Bless you fair shrew
Andrew means 'shrew-mouse', a
term of endearment; however, usually
'shrew' was an insulting term for a
bad-tempered woman (as in
Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew)
SIR TOBY BELCH
An thou let part so, Sir Andrew,
would thou mightst
never draw sword again.
Both literally a sign of losing the
social status that allows him to carry a
sword, but also a reference to
impotency: the sword is a phallic
image, Toby threatening that Andrew
will be emasculated and unable to
'draw his sword' for any lady.
SIR ANDREW
Wherefore, sweetheart? What’s your
metaphor?

MARIA
It’s dry, sir.
Maria both indicates that her joke
is dryly witty and too clever for
Andrew, but also that Andrew is
impotent: 'dry' was a synonym for
castrated.
SIR TOBY BELCH
Excellent. It hangs like flax on a distaff. And I hope
to see a housewife take thee between her legs and
spin it off.

In this scene, Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew are

discussing Andrew’s hair, which is apparently flat and
lifeless. While Toby uses the image of a woman spinning
yarn from flax, the line is a rather unfortunate double
entendre. Essentially, Sir Toby is telling Andrew that he
hopes a woman takes him “between her legs” and that he
contracts syphilis, a disease which causes hair loss.
Calling himself an "eater of
beef" is Sir Andrew's way of
calling himself dimwitted.
During Shakespeare's time it
was believed that eating too
much meat made an
individual stupid or
foolish.Twelfth Night reflects
on how the excess of
anything, particularly love,
can make an individual
behave foolishly. Similar to
the meat Sir Andrew
consumes, love can be all
consuming, causing a person
to behave
uncharacteristically.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek

I would I had bestowed that time in

the tongues, that I have in fencing,
dancing and bear-baiting: O, had I
but followed the arts!
After a failed attempt to woo Olivia, Sir Andrew tells Toby that he is going to leave
Illyria. Toby asks him why, saying "Pourquoi," and Sir Andrew replies with this quote.
Sir Andrew doesn't understand the meaning of the french word, and laments that he
wished he had focused more on the arts. He has spent his time fencing and training
dogs to kill bears for sport instead of learning the language of love or studying
literature. Thus, he blames himself for his own inability to get Olivia to marry him.

Here art, flourishing language, and impressive creative gestures are seen as way to a
woman's heart. We've seen it with Orsino and now with Sir Andrew. Yet these things
are merely performative, and we will learn that grand gestures don't always woo the
woman. It's also ironic that Sir Andrew says this line incredibly dramatically, noted by
the exclamation point at the end, suggesting that while he laments his lack of creativity
and his time spent in the arts, he is in fact performing
 ACT 1 SCENE 4
Summary: At Orsino's palace, Viola, now disguised as the
page boy
Cesario, chats with Valentine. Valentine tells Cesario that if he
continues to please Orsino this well, he will advance quickly in
the household: after only three days the Duke already trusts
him intimately.

Analysis: In this conversation, which anticipates Viola's

intimacy with Orsino, Viola appears disguised as Cesario in the
costume she'll wear for the rest of the play.
 ACT 1 SCENE 4
Summary: Orsino enters and asks to speak with Cesario
privately. Orsino then tells Cesario he has Orsino's full
confidence, and tells Cesario to go to Olivia's house and do
whatever he can to receive an audience on Orsino's behalf.
Cesario is skeptical, given the firmness of Olivia's resolve not
to see anyone. But Orsino is confident that Cesario will be
able to persuade her—particularly because, prepubescent, he
still looks like a woman: his lips, his voice all resemble "a
woman's part" (1.4.35).
 ACT 1 SCENE 4

Analysis: This exchange further establishes the degree of

trust between Orsino and Cesario. At the same time, Orsino's
comment that because Cesario resembles a woman he is
likely to persuade Olivia alludes to the ambiguity of Cesario's
gender and the confusion it will cause.
 ACT 1 SCENE 4
Summary: Cesario departs for Olivia's house with four or five
attendants. But, privately, Viola remarks to herself that she is in
a difficult situation: she must woo on behalf of a man whom she
herself would like to marry!

Analysis: Viola's love for Orsino is even more impossible than

Orsino's love for Olivia. Disguised as a male servant, Viola can't
even reveal her love. But Viola never displays the showy
melancholy that Orsino seems to enjoy. Instead, her language is
plain, which makes the pain she feels seem more real.
Orsino

Thy small pipe Is as the

maiden's organ, shrill and
sound, And all is semblative a
woman's part
Viola has disguised herself as a young page boy named Cesario, and now
resides in Orsino's court. Orsino has begun to rely on Cesario for advice and
information on Olivia. He asks her to go to Olivia's home and woo her for him
using any means necessary. In this moment Orsino tells Cesario that she may
be able to persuade Olivia because she resembles and sounds like a woman,
suggesting that Olivia may be more comfortable in the presence of a
prepubescent boy than Orsino himself. Here Shakespeare notes the confusing
nature of Viola's disguise and how it plays to the advantage of Orsino. Olivia
has sworn off the presence of men, so Orsino uses the femininity of Cesario
(Viola) to his advantage. There is also a sense of freedom that comes for
Viola-as-Cesario. As a man she can walk the court freely and be independent,
and she can also have a friendship with Orsino as well as be his confidant. This
allows her to see Orsino as he truly is from the start; something she never
would have been able to do as a young woman