Twelfth Night: Critics Flashcards
‘A shift of lighting suffices to convert one into another’ (comedy and tragedy)
Thomas Mann
‘It rejects the stale conventions of stylized love’
Professor Tonkin
Shakespeare’s boy-girl twins…
A play on platonic theory
The interlocking scenes of the plot and subplot offer ‘a contrast of romance and social realism’
Penny Gay
Sebastian and Viola’s meeting in the play…
is ‘a beautiful duet of recognition’ Penny Gay
In Shakespeare great love is expressed through great poetry
Professor Tonkin
One of the play’s main themes is…
The suddeness and unexpectedness of love– Penny Gay
‘fools are the only ones who speak frankly and tell the truth’
Erasmus
‘In this wonderful song.. there is a current of sadness’
Stephen Greenblat
Orsino is a ‘Petrachian lover’
Prof Tonkin
‘A love sick Orsino addressing a life-denying Olivia sworn to seven years mourning for her brother’s death. Both are “sick of self love” /
Prof Tonkin
Orsino’s final couplet about his ‘fancy’s queen’ ‘leaves us securely in the world of make believe’
Clifford Leech
The falseness of Orsino’s love is compounded by the real emotion that Viola feels for her brother’
Penny Gay
The frutration of a love turned in on itself
Prof Tonkin
Like a refusal to leave the love of brothers behind and embrace the sexual love that moves us from dependence on family towards independence
Prof Tonkin
Female passion in a male convention
Penny Gay
talk as no dramatic heroine has talked before
Penny Gay
Viola’s disguise is a gesture of self effacement
Keir Elam
It would not be too much to call Viola the spirit of love
Prof Tonkin
Solvent characters… static world
Prof Tonkin
Rosalind and Viola: sexual ambiguity= representation of everyone
Angela Thirwell
Comedy is an imitation of the common errors of our lives
Philip Sidney
Sport with human follies not with crimes
Ben Johnson
