Twelfth Night Critics Flashcards
Lisa Hopkins
- “pervading obsession with marriage”
- “despite the traditional view that marriage provides comic closure, this is, in fact, very rarely achieved”
- “in the comic universe…the world not only remains fundamentally the same, but is indeed reinforced by the reaffirmation of that most basic of all props of social and patriarchal order, marriage”
Francois Laroque
- “the cruel games of deception and exposure – illustrated…between Sir Toby, Feste and Malvolio in ‘Twelfth Night’ – insist on dissonance (lack of agreement) and cacophony (unharmonious)”
- “it is quite necessary to re-establish a critical perspective after enjoying the sweet impossibilities of romance”
R.W Malsen
“comedy begins with grand promises to restrain its ebullience within permitted bounds, but ends by demonstrating its resistance to any form of containment”
Walter Kerr
- “Laughter always erupts precisely as the situation becomes hopeless”
- “Tragedy speaks always of freedom. Comedy will speak nothing but limitation”
David Bevington
- Malvolio “is an enemy of merriment and hence a foe of the kind of theatre that ‘Twelfth Night’ represents”
- Puritans like Malvolio “deserve to be outwitted and humiliated”
- Feste is the “apostle of merriment”
John Hollander
The play is “intent on destroying the whole theory of comedy and of morality entailed by the comedy of humours”
Shapiro
- “Orsino’s agonised sense of betrayal arises more from the loss of Cesario than the loss of Olivia”
Bakhtin
“the comic confusion often are carnivalistic state that permanently alters social norm”
Tosh
- Viola is a “glorious demonstration of the range of gender possibilities available to early modern people”
- “when it comes to gender, it is all a matter of performance”
Farah Karim Cooper
- Malvolio is a “social type - the presumptuous servants who resents subordination and who seeks social mobility”
- “what we witness in ‘Twelfth Night’ is a kind of psychological assault… it raises questions about the moral status or perceived superiority of the perpetrators in Lady Olivia’s household”
CP: during festive season, servants were allowed to play pranks on their superiors
Dr Emma Smith
- “Shakespeare’s comedies challenge the social orthodoxy of their time”
- “heterosexual gender norms are not reinstated”
Roger Warren
“Orsino more interested in Viola than Olivia…makes it clear that the basis of their relationship and ultimate marriage is fully established”
Witmore
“they (women) must hitch the wagon of their desires to the changing flux of circumstance if there is to be any satisfaction”
Laura Levine
“takes the most remarkable risk with the identity of its central figure”
Graham Holderness
Malvolio is the “central figure in the play”
