Twelfth Night Critics

Walter Kaizer (fry)

Fry, unlike other actors who have interpreted the role, never descends to farce, slapstick, or any comic absurdity

Walter Kaizer

The joyful resolutions at the end of Twelfth Night are possible only within its fantasy world

Robert H. Bell (fools)

Fools are quite often able to transcend the boundaries of class or status

Penny Gay (subplot)

The interlocking scenes of the plot and subplot offer a contrast of romance and social realism

Boyd Tonkin (love)

Twelfth Night rejects the stale conventions of stylised love

David Bevington (malvolio)

Malvolio is drawn into a 'crime' of social aspiration

Cash (viola)

Despite her 'masculine usurped attire', she is a paragon of feminine virtue

C.L. Barber (Petrarchan lover)

A humorous perspective about the vein of hyperbole they borrow from Renaissance romances

J.M. Gregson (feste)

a perceptive commentator upon events in the play and the folly of humanity in general

Herschel Baker (Orsino)

Orsino is a ‘narcissistic fool’

Sophie Duncan (Maria)

Maria outwits her superior, Malvolio, and orchestrates her own marriage into the aristocracy

Sophie Duncan (gender)

most of Twelfth Night’s characters display qualities that contradict their gender stereotypes

Joseph Summers (Orsino)

Orsino is ‘bound by his own mask of love’ - Joseph Summers

David Lewis (Orsino+Olivia)

For both Orsino and Olivia, self-deception serves as an avoidance of the real world and of real emotion. - David Lewis

Pequigney

It is the classic homoerotic relationship

Marilyn French (feste)

Feste is an outsider because his experiences have damaged his capacity for joy. - Marilyn French

William Hazlitt (Sir Andrew)

Sir Andrew is a mere echo and shadow of the heroes of his adoration

Pennington

Sir Toby is deadly fun [and] without morals - Pennington

Thomas (gender)

Gender fluidity...serves as the play's central dramatic irony

Kaitlin Oblesby (Maria)

The architect of jokes in her group of co-conspirators - Kaitlin Oblesby