Twelfth Night Lecture Notes

Olivia and Marriage

  • Shakespeare suggests marriage doesn't have to be complete; there's always doubt.

  • Advocates accepting uncertainty in love; complete guarantee is impossible.

Orsino's Happy Ending

  • Shakespeare condemns characters who can't change.

  • Orsino is allowed a happy ending because he realizes love let him down.

  • Changing his perspective allowed him to see the person he loved was there all along.

  • He had to put aside ridiculous traditions.

Appearance vs. Reality

  • Part of the marriage between Olivia and Sebastian.

  • Acknowledges neither person truly knows the other.

Identity and Imagery

  • Quote from Orsino: "thy small voice is as a maiden's voice."

  • Good quote for ideas of masculinity.

  • Play questions how we see being a man.

  • Antonio embodies conventional masculinity: courageous, fearless, filled with integrity.

  • Cesario embodies another idea of man.

Viola and Sebastian

  • Viola is paired with Sebastian, who we accept as a man.

  • Olivia wants to marry the Sebastian kind of man, not the Orsino or Antonio kind of man.

Appearances and Reality

  • Quote: "One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons".

  • Reflects confusing lines at the beginning . One thing can be two things at the same time.

  • Orsino acknowledges that appearances and reality can be different.

Malvolio

  • Quote: "I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you".

  • Inability to accept humiliation.

  • Inability to accept Olivia's compassion.

  • Inability to consider a different response to an enemy.

  • Orsino offers a different response, unlike Malvolio.

Maria and Idioms

  • Quote: "My purpose is, indeed, a horse to take away from me." (paraphrased).

  • Important revision strategy: a single quote can do two or three things.

  • Remember the play, events, quotes, and how they can be used in a variety of ways.

Essay Planning

  • Need a strategy to plan essays.

  • Videos from Ms. Rao about essay planning provided.

  • If you have a working strategy, that's good.

Revision Advice

  • Ask yourself who does what to whom and why.

  • Run through main characters and big decisions.

  • Consider why they did those things, point of revision.

  • Consider Maria's suggestion of deceiving and ameliorating Malvolio.

Essay Questions

  • Underline the main topic words.

  • Ask the question: In what way?

  • In what way do we see the key idea or phrase in the play itself?

  • Physical, emotional, or spiritual way.

  • Spiritual: character's worldview.

  • The "In What Way" question is a prompt to go back to the evidence.

Types of Questions

  • Propositional: when you have a quote.

  • Direct question.

  • Subtle differences between "do you agree," "to what extent," and "discuss".

  • All three need to know your opinion.

  • Explain how it is done and what is your response to the topic.

Revision Question

  • "Life presents love as both the source of liberation and the source of suffering. Discuss."

  • Keywords: love, liberation, suffering.

  • Instruction: discuss

  • Quote: "My desires, like fell and cruel hounds, ever since pursued me." - Orsino

  • The quote is inviting us to consider suffering to freedom.

Analysis of the Quote

  • "Fell" means evil, dystopian, disordered, unmerciful, unforgiving.

  • Cruel wellhounds Suggest pursued synonym is destroy.

  • The quote is suggesting something about the nature of love. It pursues mercilessly to destroy you.

Examples of Love

  • Orsino loves Olivia (romantically).

  • Andrew Aguecheek loves Olivia (mercenary).

  • The siblings love each other.

The Why Behind Love

  • What drives these loves?

  • Why do they love?

  • Helps point towards whether it's free or causes suffering.

Social Context

  • Orsino goes out of his class.

  • Aguecheek's Love is not genuine.

Essay Structure

  • Characters who bring unrealistic expectations to their loving relationships end up not being free but suffering.

    • Make the suffering specific to Orsino (misery, disappointment).

    • Body paragraph about unrealistic expectations.

  • Characters who are driven by a desire to maintain or improve their status are destined to suffer because their love is not genuine.

    • It's simply about maintaining or improving status in society.

  • Characters who bring an unrealistic expectation to loving are destined to feel a frustration or a disappointment and are pursued by their the unrealistic expectations

Freedom in Love

  • Sebastian and Olivia: discover liberated love.

  • Viola and Sebastian established love with no expectations, obligations. Merely love, give, and mourn their siblings.

  • That is a love that has no expectations, that has no sense of obligation. It's not mercenary.

  • When other couplings are successful, they embody the best qualities of sibling love (mutuality).

Process of Revision

  • Revise "who does what to whom and why".

  • Ask In what way. to see that key theme or idea in the play.

  • Think of evidence to go for.

  • State principles to resolve a that love can do both liberation and suffering.