12th Night : Feste

Question 1

Wit and Word play - Feste’s intelligence

“Wit and be thy will…”

Answer 1

“put me into good fooling […] for what says quinapalus? Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.”
- Feste Act 1, Scene 5

Meta-theatre, Shakespeare creating a link with the audience through Feste

Question 2

Wit and Word play - Feste’s intelligence

Olivia : “Take the fool away.”
“Do you not hear, fellows…”

Answer 2

“take away the lady.”
- Feste 1,5

Question 3

Wit and Word play - Feste’s intelligence

“Many a good hanging…”

Answer 3

“prevents a bad marriage.”

Question 4

Love as a cause of suffering

“O mistress mine, where are you roaming…”

Answer 4

“stay and here your true love’s coming […] what is love, tis not hereafter.”
- Feste 2,3

Question 5

Wit and Word play - Feste’s intelligence

“No such matter, sir. I do live by the church, for I do…”

Answer 5

“live at my house, and my house doth stand by the church.”
- Feste 3,1

Question 6

Wit and Word play - Feste’s intelligence

“A sentence is but a cheverel glove to a good wit…”

Answer 6

“how quickly the wrong side may be turned out.”
- Feste 3,1

Question 7

Wit and Word play - Feste’s intelligence

“But indeed words are very rascals…”

Answer 7

“since bonds disgraced them.”
- Feste 3,1

Question 8

Wit and Word play - Feste’s intelligence

“I am indeed not her fool…”

Answer 8

“but her corrupter of words.”
- Feste Act 3,1

Question 9

Love as a cause of suffering

“Come away, come away death, and in sad cypress let me be laid…”

Answer 9

“[…] I am slain by a fair and cruel maid.”
- Feste 2,4

Singing of someone being killed by their love / lover, aligns with Orsino’s melancholy and love-sickness.

Question 10

Wit and Word play - Feste’s intelligence

“Now Jove in his next commodity of hair…”

Answer 10

“send thee a beard.”
- Feste 3,1

Perhaps Feste knows Viola’s true identity.

Question 11

Wit and Word play - Feste’s intelligence [madness - topsy turvy world]

“Nor this is not my nose neither…”

Answer 11

“Nothing that is so is so.”
- Feste 4,1

Question 12

Disguise and deception - Feste’s cruelty

“Why, it hath bay-windows transparent as barricadoes, and…”

Answer 12

“the clerestories toward the south-north are as lustrous as ebony, and yet complainest thou of darkness?”
- Feste 4,2

Question 13

Wit and Word play - Feste’s intelligence

“I say there is no…”

Answer 13

“darkness but ignorance.”
- Feste 4,2

Question 14

Disguise and Deception - Feste’s cruelty

“My lady is unkind, pardie…”

Answer 14

“[…] she loves another.”
- Feste 4,2

Question 15

Disguise and Deception - Feste’s cruelty

“But tell me true, are you not mad indeed,…”

Answer 15

“or do you but counterfeit?”
- Feste 4,2

Question 16

Disguise and Deception - Feste’s cruelty

“Adieu…”

Answer 16

“Goodman devil.”
- Feste 4,2

Question 17

Wit and Word play - Feste’s intelligence

“So that by my foes, sir…”

Answer 17

“I profit in the knowledge of myself, and by my friends I am abused.”
- Feste 5,1

Question 18

Disguise and deception - Feste’s cruelty

Olivia : “How now, art thou mad?”
Feste : “No madam,…”

Answer 18

“I do but read madness.”
- Feste 5,1

Question 19

Disguise and Deception - Feste’s cruelty

“Why, ‘some are born great, some achieve greatness…”

Answer 19

“and some have greatness thrown upon them.’ I was one, sir, in this interlude, one Sir Topas… but do you remember, ‘Madam, why laugh you at such a barran rascal.”
- Feste 5,1

Feste is proud of his actions, Feste’s grudge sort of changes this view of Feste as a detatched spectator.

Question 20

Wit and Word play - Feste’s intelligence

“But that’s all one, our play is done…”

Answer 20

“And we’ll strive to please you every day.”
- Feste 5,1

It is fitting that the play ends with Feste’s song, which is the bridge to leace the time and imaginary possibilities of thr world of Illyria, for the time and the realities of the everyday world of the audience.