Critical quotes

Twelfth Night critical quotes

Marriage

Lisa Hopkins

• “Shakespeare habitually disrupts the tradition of marriage'“

• “Despite the traditional view that marriage provides comic closure, this is, in fact rarely achieved”

Comedy vs Tragedy

Walter Kerr

• Comedy will speak of nothing but limitation"

• “In tragedy there is always hope…. comedy occurs when there is no way out”

Malvolio

David Bevington

• “Malvolio is a hypocrite. Secretly he longs for the pleasures of this world and for the authority to control others.”

• '“Malvolio is harshly handled in this unusually satirical play”

Gender

Emma Smith

• “The early modern theatre was a space of gender transgression and play”

• “The final reunion of the twins suggests that it is gender identity, rather than romantic love, that is at the heart of the play.”

Festive comedy

Francois Laroque

• “Shakespeare stood in defence of ‘old holiday pastimes’”

• “Shakespeare’s festival comedies… sanction sexual desire… praise the wisdom of folly, as constancy and happiness are ultimately proved right”

The Twins

Peter Holland

• “the play becomes, for a family that has lost a twin son, a wish-fulfillment”

• “Viola is performing Sebastian…denying his death by making him alive in her performance”

Reversals

Tiffany Stern

• “Twelfth Night is about a world in reverse”

• “People, the play suggests… could just as easily be their own opposites”

The Ending

Lilla Grindlay

• “Act 5 has exposed Illyria as a world destabilised by darkness.”

• “At the end of the play, Cesario is still on stage - a blank on whom it would appear both Orsino and Olivia are in, in different ways, writing out their own homoerotic desires”

Satire

R.W Maslen

• “Comedy was the dramatic form that dealt with commoners”

• “Tragedy dealt with times that were safely past… comedy dealt with the dangerous present”

Language

Lynne Mangusson

• “Punning repartee is in itself a mainstay of Shakespearean comedy”

• “the comedies are remarkable for their frequent representations… of women’s language as competent, eloquent, fluent, witty, or powerful”