Critics Flashcards
Tromly
‘folly is a positive force in the play’ ‘allows characters to accept delusion, vulnerability, mortality and come to terms with life’
Gregson
‘epitome of Elizabethan romantic comedy. Blending of disparate and contradictory elements makes it an almost perfect play’
C Lewis
Antonio is the moral centre of the play, not Viola
Slights
‘the characters achieve personal fulfilment and social accord through generosity, alliance and awareness of the restrictions imposed by personal ambition and self-absorption’
Ryan
‘Janus faced play which looks back to farcical, festive romantic comedies that preceded it and forward to darker, disenchanted vision of romances’ miraculous bittersweet tales of shipwreck, grief and kindred reunited
D Lewis
‘for both Orsino and Olivia, self-deception serves as an avoidance of the real world and of real emotion’
Bate
‘Viola redeems the play because she proves to be selfless, not selfish, in love’
Bloom
‘everyone except Feste is essentially mad without knowing it’
Barber
‘we enjoy the play because it’s a wish-fulfilment presented so skilfully we don’t notice our hearts are duping our heads’
Johnson
‘the marriage of Olivia fails as it exhibits no just picture of life’
Pequigney
[Sebastian and Antonio’s relationship is] the classic homoerotic relationship’
Lindheim
‘drunkenness can be the mask that Sir Toby discards if Twelfth Night as a festival suggests a time of disguise’
Hazlitt
[Sir Andrew] is ‘a mere echo and shadow of the heroes of his admiration. ‘the butt of jokes’ ‘brainless’
Barber
the play ‘inverts sexual and gender roles ultimately to re-establish and confirm normal relations’
Fay
‘the play depicts one’s gender as essentially a performed role’
