Twelfth Night – A. J. Drake's Shakespeare Site

Questions on
Shakespeare’s Comedies

Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night, or What You Will. (The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies, 3rd ed. 743-97.)

ACT 1

1. Romantic-era critic William Hazlitt’s 1817 essay on Twelfth Night suggests that in Shakespeare’s approach to comedy, “the foibles and follies of individuals are of nature’s planting, not the growth of art or study.” In Act 1, Scene 1, how might Hazlitt’s general statement be a key to understanding Duke Orsino? To what excess or “foible” is he prone? Is he in love with Olivia, or with something else? Explain.

2. In Act 1, Scene 2, what is the situation on the Illyrian coast? That is, what has happened to Viola and her brother? What plan does Viola announce to the Captain when he mentions first Countess Olivia, and then Duke Orsino? How does this scene establish Viola as the play’s central character?

3. In Act 1, Scene 3, what is Sir Toby Belch’s attitude towards his niece Countess Olivia’s insistence on mourning for her departed brother? What is his philosophy of life generally? What accounts for his interest in Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and what advice does Sir Toby offer Sir Andrew in his courtship of Olivia?

4. In Act 1, Scene 4, what is the basis of the intimacy that quickly forms between Duke Orsino and Viola (disguised as “Cesario”)? Why does the Duke think his suit to Olivia will succeed if he employs “Cesario” as his intermediary—what is the problem with his logic in this regard? What issue has Viola, in her own person, already run into by being chosen as the Duke’s messenger in his suit to Olivia?

5. In Act 1, Scene 5, we meet Olivia’s Clown, Feste. Consider the bantering between this character and Maria, and then with Olivia herself. How does Feste describe his profession to Maria, and afterwards, what argument does he advance to “prove” Olivia a fool? Why would he want to prove such a thing? More broadly, how do you understand his remark, “Any thing that’s mended is but / patched” (1.5.41)?

6. In Act 1, Scene 5, what disagreement does Olivia have with her steward, Malvolio, over Feste’s merit? What is the basis of Malvolio’s dislike of Feste, and how does the Countess defend Feste in spite of her present misgivings about him—why doesn’t she credit anything her steward says about him?

7. In Act 1, Scene 5, Olivia decides to grant a hearing to the Duke’s current attempt to woo her in the person of ”Cesario.” What qualities make the messenger so attractive to Olivia that she overlooks her disdain for the Duke? What effect does “Cesario’s” presence have on Countess Olivia’s resolution to observe strict mourning protocol?

8. In Act 1, Scene 5, how does “Cesario” manage the task of wooing by proxy for Duke Orsino, and how does she/he respond to Countess Olivia’s defensive witticisms, such as describing her face as a “picture” (1.5.215ff) and promising to hand out “divers[e] schedules” of her beauty? In sum, how does Viola characterize and actually play the part of a male suitor?

9. In Act 1, Scene 5, by the scene’s end, Olivia has fallen madly in love with the visitor she believes is the male youth “Cesario.” When she is finally alone with her thoughts, how does the Countess explain predicament to herself? What plot does she whip up to get her new one-way love interest “Cesario” to return?

ACT 2

10. In Act 2, Scene 1, Antonio and Sebastian converse after the latter has been rescued from the shipwreck that he believes drowned his sister Viola. What account does Sebastian give of himself, including his sister’s and his own appearance? How might we characterize the affinity that seems to arise suddenly between Antonio and Sebastian? What other Shakespeare plays emphasize male friendship in this manner?

11. In Act 2, Scene 2, Malvolio presents himself to “Cesario” and insists on giving him a ring back that he never left with Olivia in the first place. How does Viola process the complication that has arisen since her proxy wooing (as “Cesario”) of Olivia in the service of Duke Orsino? Is Viola also offering us her reflections on gender, on the different sensibilities of men and women? Explain.

12. In Act 2, Scene 2, Viola concludes her thoughts by addressing time: “O time, thou must untangle this, not I. / It is too hard a knot for me t’untie” (2.3.39-40). This may seem a rather passive approach to her predicament. Yet that probably doesn’t seem to us weak or wrong. How is it that she can speak this way, and yet remain the play’s most favored character, or “heroine”? Explain.

13. In Act 2, Scene 3, Sir Toby and Sir Andrew banter with Feste the Clown. How does Feste manage to impress Sir Andrew? When Andrew and Toby ask Feste to sing them a song, what kind of song does he sing? How does this song somewhat counteract the implications of Countess Olivia’s jests to “Cesario” about her own beauty in Act 1, Scene 5?

14. In Act 2, Scene 3, Maria enters while Toby, Andrew, and Feste are singing a comic popular song or “catch,” and warns them that Olivia may already have called on Malvolio to toss them out for making a racket. When Malvolio arrives, how does he handle the situation—what criticism, and then what threat, does he aim at the revelers, and how does Toby answer it?

15. In Act 2, Scene 3, with Sir Toby’s encouragement, Maria works up a plot against Malvolio to pay him back for being a scold. What does Maria apparently think of Malvolio’s character, and what payback does she plan? What makes the plan so appropriate to Malvolio’s character, and what’s the connection between this trickery-plot and the larger action of the play (i.e., the one that centers on the love-pursuits of Viola, Olivia, and Orsino)?

16. In Act 2, Scene 4, Viola is by now in as strong a state of passion for the Duke as the Duke supposedly is for Olivia, which makes for an interesting discussion about the relative strength of men’s love and women’s love. How does each character argue the case? How, in particular, does Viola, as “Cesario,” defend the quality of women’s love? Does her gender-disguise afford her any advantages or insights? Explain.

17. In Act 2, Scene 5, to the delight of Sir Toby and Maria, Malvolio falls head-first into the trap that Maria has set for him. How does he interpret the alleged signs of Olivia’s affection, and in the process of doing that, how does he size up his own worth and his prospects going forward as well as reveal himself to be a hypocrite? How does he fancy that he would treat others if he wereCountess Olivia’s exalted husband?

ACT 3

18. In Act 3, Scene 1, Feste the Clown greets “Cesario,” who is on the way to speak to Olivia again. How does Feste sum up for Viola/Cesario his own role as a fool? How does he fold in some reflection on the uses and abuses of language? What is Viola/Cesario’s estimation of Feste’s qualities as an observer and as a speaker?

19. In Act 3, Scene 1, describe the impasse between Viola/Cesario and Countess Olivia with regard to the latter’s passion for this servant of Duke Orsino. How might Olivia’s passion for “Cesario” be differentiated from the passion that Orsino professes for Olivia? What injury does Olivia accuse “Cesario” of doing to her? How does Viola/Cesario respond to this charge?

20. In Act 3, Scene 2, what advice do Fabian and then Toby give Andrew about his role as a suitor seeking the affections of Countess Olivia? What kind of letter does Toby encourage Andrew to write—what should characterize its style and what objective will it try to accomplish? When Toby and Fabian are alone, what does Toby admit to Fabian about his true opinion of Andrew, and intentions toward him?

21. In Act 3, Scene 3, what does Antonio confess to Sebastian about the reason he has followed him to town and the peril he, Antonio, is in just by being in Illyria? What is Antonio’s brief but significant “back story”? Why does he give Sebastian his purse just as the two men are taking leave of each other?

22. In Act 3, Scene 4, how does Maria and Toby’s joke on Malvolio play out in front of Olivia? What does he do that, at least to the unapprised Olivia, marks him as a madman? How does the Countess react to this strange attempt to court her? What instructions does she give to ensure Malvolio’s safety, and how do those instructions immediately backfire?

23. In Act 3, Scene 4, Malvolio, having made an ass of himself with his bizarre courtship of Olivia, is questioned by Sir Toby, and then carted off to a dark cell as a madman. How does Toby describe the course that he wants this jest or “device” to follow, now that he and his confederates have Malvolio in their power? What limit does Toby set to how far the jest will go?

24. In Act 3, Scene 4, Olivia briefly entertains “Cesario” again. How does this round of conversation go? What is Olivia’s concern at this point—what has she become anxious about in light of “Cesario’s” failure to respond to her passionate entreaties? How does “Cesario” respond to the distressed Countess?

25. In Act 3, Scene 4, Sir Andrew brings Sir Toby his letter challenging “Cesario” to a duel over the love of Countess Olivia. How does Toby manage the setting-up of the duel between “Cesario” and Sir Andrew? How does Fabian insert himself into the proceedings since he stays behind with “Cesario” while Toby goes to fetch Andrew? As for Sir Toby, while advising Andrew, what evaluation does he offer regarding male rhetoric about honor and violence?

26. In Act 3, Scene 4, as the duel shapes up, what does Viola, trapped in her disguise as “Cesario,” admit to herself as well as to others about the way she regards this supposed opportunity to prove herself a man of valor? What happens when Antonio—an actualman of valor—shows up in the midst of this ridiculous spectacle? What happens, in turn, to Antonio, and why is he enraged with “Cesario”?

ACT 4

27. In Act 4, Scenes 1 and 3, Sebastian (once he escapes the crazy “fight club” situation that Andrew and Toby push him into) is at first surprised to find Olivia enamored of him (she thinks he is “Cesario,” of course) and then, in Scene 3, agrees to her sudden proposal of marriage. He knows Olivia is mistaken, but still agrees. What explanation does Sebastian give for this decision? What connection does he make between love and madness—one that is of course relevant to the play’s action as a whole?

28. In Act 4, Scene 1, first Sir Andrew strikes Sebastian with his sword, and then Sir Toby arrives and gets into the action with the newcomer, who is suitably astonished at this turn of events. What comment does this scene, by its mere enactment, make in connection to Twelfth Night’s larger exploration of “mistaken identities”—a theme that we often see embedded in comic plays going all the way back to ancient Greece?

29. In Act 4, Scene 2, Sir Toby and Feste the Clown have still more fun at the expense of the imprisoned Malvolio. What reservations is Sir Toby starting to have about the plot against Malvolio, and why? What observations does Feste (first as Sir Topas and then in his own person) make about insanity in the course of his chat with Malvolio? In particular, what is the significance of Topas’s reference to Pythagoras and the doctrine of reincarnation or the transmigration of souls?

ACT 5

30. At the outset of Act 5, Scene 1, Feste the Clown encounters Duke Orsino and is successful at getting him to tip liberally twice for his witticisms and wordplay. How does Orsino’s refusal to tip Feste a third time set at least a temporary limit to the spirit of generosity by which truly comic endings are achieved? How does this moment help to set up the rest of the fifth act?

31. In Act 5, Scene 1, Antonio is brought into Orsino’s presence, and things look very bad for him when the Duke recognizes him as an enemy fighter. Then he mentions Viola/Cesario. How, from Antonio’s perspective, is “Cesario” responsible for his current predicament? How does the Duke’s observation about “Cesario’s” time of service to him make matters even worse for Antonio?

32. In Act 5, Scene 1, Orsino becomes furious with Olivia when she again rejects his passionate suit, and he even threatens to sacrifice Cesario to spite her. When we witness how Orsino’s anger flares in the play’s concluding act, how might we understand his presence as involving not simply the perspective of an individual suitor but also a structural principle or device in the comic genre? What principle vital to the comic love pursuit does Orsino’s angry and vengeful behavior drive home?

33. Next up in the series of “knots” to be cinched still tighter for a time in Act 5, Scene 1 is Olivia’s confusion when “Cesario” can’t acknowledge having already married the Countess—a “failure” that not only distresses Olivia but also deepens the Duke’s anger and disappointment. To what extent, though, is Orsino’s despair most likely about something in addition to his exasperation over Olivia’s repeated refusals? Might “Cesario” have more to do with Orsino’s frustration than is at first apparent? Explain.

34. In Act 5, Scene 1, how (by what device) does Shakespeare untie the comic knots of mistaken identity in the first four acts and persisting into the fifth act— namely the confusion, frustration, and trouble caused in part by Viola’s gender disguise as “Cesario”? How does the tumbling entrance of the injured Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, Feste, and, most importantly, Sebastian make the untying possible? How do Viola and Sebastian complete this process face-to-face, and mutually prove their kinship?

35. In Act 5, Scene 1, there remains one last “knot” to untie: Malvolio is furious over the harsh treatment visited on him by Maria, Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, Fabian, and Feste. First he sends a letter demanding that Countess Olivia explain what he supposes to be her part in abusing him, and then he shows up in person. How does Fabian unspool the conspiracy and assess the harm it has done? What does Feste’s confessional observation about “the whirligig of time” add to the explanation?

36. In Act 5, Scene 1, with regard to Malvolio’s promise to exact revenge and his abrupt exit at the play’s end, some critics have taken the priggish Steward’s claims to victim-status seriously. Malvolio’s parting threat certainly injects a sour note into a symphony of happy marriages. But how much weight should we accord his suffering as a drag on an otherwise fully comic play? Should we think of his punishment as just? If so, why? Or does Malvolio’s suffering somewhat violate the comic spirit that otherwise reigns?

37. Feste the Clown is one of Shakespeare’s most interesting fools, and he’s a musician, too, with songs gracing Acts 2.3, 2.4, 4.2, and the very end of 5.1. What significance do these songs hold in relation to the play’s broad concerns, such as the power of love in and over people’s lives, personal autonomy or the lack thereof, the balance of freedom and responsibility, the inevitability of change and death, or other relevant issues? (Address the final song, “When that I was …” and at least one other.)

Edition. Greenblatt, Stephen et al., editors. The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies + Digital Edition. 3rd ed. W. W. Norton, 2016. ISBN-13: 978-0-393-93861-6.