Shakespeare and Twelfth Night
Shakespearean Plot Diagram
Iambic Pentameter
An iamb is a foot (poetry measurement) that is made of one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Pent means five so iambic pentameter is a line with five iambs. A line in iambic pentameter follows the rhythm de/DUM de/DUM de/DUM de/DUM de/DUM. The first line of Twelfth Night is in iambic pentameter: “If music be the food of love, play on”
Poetry vs Prose
Shakespeare used both poetry (verse, usually iambic pentameter) and prose (closer to everyday language, novels are usually prose based). He used poetry to show high class characters or high class actions. He used prose to show low class characters or low class actions. So, what if we have a low class person doing a high class thing?
Aside
This is a stage direction that indicates that the actor is thinking out loud for the benefit of the audience. The other characters on stage cannot hear this line.
Soliloquy
Latin for “solo talk”. This is when lines are delivered by one actor, most often when alone on stage. The character is exploring their thoughts and feelings, also sharing them with the audience. Any other characters on stage are ignored and cannot hear these lines.
Clowns and Fools
Shakespeare used these characters as comedic devices. Clown were often lower class and uneducated and their behaviour is meant for a laugh. Fools were based on court jesters and, while goofily comedic at times, were more witty and satirical than the clowns. Which of these types would best fit Feste?
Shakespeare and Gender
In Shakespeare’s time, all roles on stage were played by males. This is because females were not allowed on stage. Those in charge believed that females were too mentally and spiritually weak to handle the morally questionable aspects of theatre. In Shakespeare’s time, a woman being on stage was nearly the equivalent of prostitution. They also thought women were too dumb to learn the lines.
Twelfth Night
The name of the play is linked to the Twelve Days of Christmas, also known as Twelvetide, the twelve days after Christmas Day. Depending on the branch of Christianity, Twelfth Night falls on either January 5th or 6th.
Eunuch
A man who has been castrated (surgical removal of the use of the testicles) usually so that he can serve some social role. In Italy, there was a sub-group within opera known as the castrati, singers who had been castrated before their voices dropped. During Shakespeare’s life, castrati visited and performed in London.
Quoting and Citing Shakespeare
“If music be the food of love, play on; / Give me excess of it, that surfeiting, / The appetite may sicken and so die” (Twelfth Night 1.1.1-3) or (TN 1.1.1-3)
William Shakespeare. Twelfth Night. Ed. Rex Gibson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2013. Print.