context- twelfth night Flashcards
what was the ‘twelfth night’ festival in the elizabethan period
-In the Elizabethan period, ‘Twelfth Night’ was a festival celebrated on the 5-6th of January
-commemorated the visit of the three Wise Men to the baby Jesus
-the climax of the festive season, the occasion for music, elaborate fancy-dress masked balls, revelry, and parties during which whoever found the bean baked into a special cake would be declared ‘Lord of Misrule’ for the night.
-topsy-turvydom: social hierarchies would be reversed
-The hedonistic sir toby seems to embody the values
how was social status reinforced by clothes in the elizabethan period
due to the increasingly influential merchant class since the middle ages, the tudors tried to reinforce visable rank….
-sumptuary laws, regulated how much the members of different classes were allowed to spend on clothes, ( these laws were reinforced by a series of proclamations throughout the reigns of Henry VIII, Mary I and Elizabeth I)
–it was named ‘Proclamation against Excess of Apparel by Queen Elizabeth I’
-it was actually illegal to wear fabrics or colours deemed inappropriate to one’s station.
When Malvolio fantasises about being married to Olivia, he pictures himself ordering staff around in a ‘branch’d velvet gown’
what was the ‘anatomy of abuses’
In The Anatomy of Abuses (1583), the puritanical Philip Stubbes warns against wearing clothes intended for the other sex.
context of malvolio dressing in yellow stockings and cross gartered
-Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and their servants involves trick Malvolio into a different inappropriate outfit, yellow stockings, cross-gartered (outdated and inappropriate for his rank)
- Not only was cross-gartering outmoded by 1601, but wearing brightly-coloured hose was a badge of the young, free and single (there was even an Elizabethan popular song, in which a husband longs for his carefree bachelordom, called ‘Give Me My Yellow Hose Again’).
malvolio’s values as a puritan context
- he is akin to the puritan faction within the English Church in Shakespeare’s time
- puritans wanted those pre-Reformation festival practices, which remained part of the ecclesiastical calendar, removed. and who were especially keen to ban recreational activities on Sundays and the fund-raising parish booze-ups known as ‘church ales’.
-For the puritans, the whole year should be equally sober: there should be no more carnival, only a perpetual, law-abiding Lent (explains his disproval of sir toby and sir Andrew)
-Puritans were anti-theatre, anti-drinking and feasting, and anti-Catholic. (they were hardcore protestants)
-ultimately his situation ends in tradgedy and is unresolved (shows the discimination that was prevelant from the dominant pagan group towards puritans)
why were playhouses closed down after shakespeare’s death
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the playhouses would in time be closed down during the rule of a puritan Parliament (1642) and James’s son Charles I deposed and executed (1649).
what was the puritanical book against festivities
The Anatomy of Abuses by Philip Stubbes, 1583
what happened when a group of law students saw the play in 1602
-Twelfth Night was seen by London law student John Manningham in February 1602, at the Middle Temple Hall.
-his disproval would haver been similar to educated men of the audience at the time
-saw it on the date of candlemas (a February feast)
where is ‘illiriya’ located, and how was it dangerous
-the coast of the eastern Adriatic (today Dalmatia and Albania)
-The sea-lanes of Illyria were famous for pirates (antonio was a pirate)
what was the ‘elephant’ public house
-it was actually a public house situated near shakespeare’s globe, but it wasn’t very reputable
what was the plays origional title and how did it link to the festivity of twelfth night
‘What You Will’, the play’s alternative title, might refer to the festive ‘misrule’ of Twelfth Night
shows how the play allows the audience to interpret for themselves the meaning and significance of events
-adds sense of confusion that it prevelent in illiriya
when was the twelfth night festival
5–6 January, the traditional last day of Christmas festivities and thus the final party before the return to normality
what was a puritan in the elizabethan period
‘Puritan’ was a strong term in the politics of religion in 1600. A branch of Christianity much mocked in Elizabethan times for its harsh attitudes towards pleasure. The term was used as an insult during Shakespeare’s day.
Puritans were anti-theatre, anti-drinking and feasting, and anti-Catholic
strongly protestant
-often twisted the words of the bible to resemble their beliefs
what was candlemas
the feast of the presentation of the Christ Child in the temple
how did puritans view festivities like twelfth night and candlemas
Such winter feasts as Christmas, Twelfth Night (commemorating the visit of the three Wise Men to the baby Jesus) and Candlemas (the feast of the presentation of the Christ Child in the temple) were strongly associated with the ‘Old Religion’, Roman Catholicism, which had caused such conflict in 16th-century England
saw twelfth night as an older folk, pagan tradition with features like the Lord of Misrule
what was topsy-turvydom in twelfth night (and how is it shown through characters)
-during the twelfth night carnival Social hierarchies were temporarily re-arranged to become ‘topsy-turvy’ and a ‘Lord of Misrule’ was appointed.
the Lord of Misrule (here embodied in the rowdy English knight Sir Toby Belch) signifying that the ‘normal’ world and its behaviour were turned upside down for the duration of the feast.
Viola’s dressing in male clothes, and Malvolio’s fantasy that he (a servant) can become the husband of his lady Olivia, are also examples of the world turned upside down.
what was a dark house
a treatment for mad persons in the period
who played women in plays in the elizabethan period (gender context)
Women were not allowed to perform on the public stage in England until 1660 and so female roles in Shakespeare’s time were played by younger male actors.
e.g Viola is a boy acting as a woman dressed as a boy and Olivia is a boy acting as a woman.
Shakespeare’s twins context
William Shakespeare was the father of twins. They were christened Hamnet and Judith in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon on 2 February 1585.
Exactly seventeen years later Twelfth Night was performed in Middle Temple, London, but Judith was now without her twin brother who had died five-and-a-half years before twelfth night was first performed on 4 August 1596
it is perhaps significant that in this play Shakespeare sets the union of romantic lovers within the broader frame of the restoration of a lost brother to his twin sister.
which paintings shows the tension between carnival (pagan) and lent (puritan)
1559 painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder represents the opposing forces of Carnival and Lent
what did plato say in his symposium about gender/ sexuality
Humans were originally two joined creatures, but we grew overconfident, and Zeus punished us by splitting us down the middle. Each half is plagued by loneliness which can only be remedied by finding our other half. Those who began as a half- male, half-female creature will be attracted to their heterosexual other. Those who began as two men, or two women, will search for their homosexual other.
how was twelfth night influenced by Barnaby Rich’s short story ‘Of Apolonius and Silla’ (1581)
Barnaby Rich’s short story ‘Of Apolonius and Silla’ (1581) revolves around two twins and their confused love-interests, and it served as a key source for Twelfth Night. Where Shakespeare’s Viola cross- dresses as the male eunuch Cesario and is later confused with her lost brother Sebastian, Rich’s female twin, Silla, not only cross-dresses but uses her brother Silvio’s name. Rich’s version is darker: Shakespeare’s sea captain helps Viola, but Rich’s sea captain attempts to rape Silla.
What conventions of comedy are respected in Twelfth Night?
It ends with marriage, which was a convention of comedy, both Olivia and Sebastian and Viola and Orsino.
Why is Olivia’s meeting with Cesario so scandalous?
Women were not supposed to have the right to choose for herself her spouse of suitor, and so Olivia’s meetings with and pursuit of Cesario would have been considered unusual. Twelfth Night could therefore be a challenge to the archetypes.
