Twelfth Night 1.5 pp 751-753
Malvolio beginning to be characterised as a natural fool
'he will not pass his word that you are no fool'. Subverts Malvolio's words.
he criticises the 'natural' foolery of the aristocracy for being complicit within allowed folly, and allowing Feste to continue, 'I protest I take these wise men that crow so at these set kind of fools no better than fool's zanies
Malvolio seems tasteless and crude, 'O, you are sick of self love, Malvolio' Olivia reprimands him and confirms the ingrained status of allowed foolery within the households.
Olivia's defence of fooling- comedy concerned with different kinds of folly
androgyny
Puberty and youthfulness - androgyny attributed to youth. Malvolio describes him as a turn of the tide, midway between two ages. At 14 enter the world of masculinity and a masculine identity - different gender available to little boys than grown up men. Young men in the early modern period should constitute a third gender? Different kind of position.
Masculine as something you become
'One would think his mother's milk were scarce out of him'. 'Tis with him in standing water between boy and man'
Cesario exploits the conventions of Renaissance love poetry and the chivalric ideals of persistence and steadfastness, 'he's fortified against any denial' 'fortified' suggests built and artificial constructions. Also, 'he'll stand at your door like a sherriff's post'.
Can see the difference between concerns for nobility and status by Sir Toby and Malvolio. While Sir Toby immediately interprets, 'what is he at the gate' as 'a gentleman', Malvolio responds to 'what kind of man is he' with 'why, of mankind'. He will later be punished for his lack of regard for proper social distinctions and boundaries that actually structure the wider 'mankind'. Olivia is also definitely more occupied with status 'of what personage and years is he'
Malvolio initially describes Cesario similarly to the fair youth of Shakespeare's sonnets
she is also concerned with surface signifiers and modes of appearance and how this ties in with her reputation and aristocratic status.
'Give me my veil' - in theory she should be wearing this always in public, but to a stranger she wishes to resume her appearance as the grieving noble lady, steadfast and moral. The characters want to fuel their own stereotypes and perceptions.
Viola aces her identity with anxiety, exploiting the metatheatrical acknowledgements of the studied 'stageness' of her character.
'I swear I am not that I play'
'I will on with the speech in your praise and then show you the heart of my message'
Olivia rejects this, therefore the artificillness of the tradition of love poetry is underlines comedically. Also the fact that Olivia ends up falling in love with Cesario, ironically achieving his aim whilst also not.
rejecting courtly love conventions.
conventionally complimentary and delivered in a 'high tone'
'most radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable beauty'
The way Shakespeare develops his characters here, at the same time as driving his plot forward, is worthy of close attention, so let us look in some detail at this crucial scene between Olivia and Viola in Act 1 Scene 5. The scene begins with Olivia’s instruction to her waiting women to ‘Give me my veil, come throw it o’er my face. / We’ll once more hear Orsino’s embassy’ (1.5.158-9). Olivia’s veil is a token of mourning but also a means of disguise. So when they first meet both Viola and Olivia are concealing themselves somewhat, Viola disguised as the male Cesario and Olivia behind her veil. Viola is determined to cut through the difficulty of identifying her target audience with a direct question: ‘The honourable lady of the house, which is she?’ (1.5.160). Olivia does not make a full disclosure of her identity, though arguably she gives herself away by speaking at all: ‘Speak to me, I shall answer for her. Your will’ (1.5.161). Now begins a curious device by which Shakespeare brings an absent character, Orsino, Duke of Illyria, into the scene. Viola begins to speak lines which are not her own, but learnt from a text, and the text she has learnt her lines from is Orsino’s. However, such is the irrepressible energy of Viola’s own character that she cannot get far into Orsino’s text (a text of rather lame hyperbolic courtly love poetry) before she interrupts it with her own spontaneous words:
Most radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable beauty -1 pray you tell me if this be the lady of the house, for I never saw her. I would be loath to cast away my speech, for besides that it is excellently well penned, I have taken great pains to con it.
The effect of this interruption of herself is enhanced by Shakespeare’s theatrical allusions throughout this passage through words such as ‘comedian’, ‘part’, ‘speech’ and ‘play’:
This is another victory for Viola, whose directness and persistence has again been rewarded by Olivia revealing her identity. Olivia’s interest in the young, sexy visitor is apparent through her personal questioning of him: ‘Your will?’, ‘Whence came you sir?’ and ‘Are you a comedian?’ Though Viola now moves completely out of her prepared text, her exchange of words with Olivia maintains our awareness of the artifice of the situation, for behind Viola and Olivia, and behind Orsino’s text, there moves the pen of William Shakespeare, the feigning poet
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Olivia
Yet you began rudely. What are you? What would you?
Viola
The rudeness that hath appeared in me have I learned from my entertainment. What I am and what I would are as secret as maidenhead: to your ears, divinity; to any others’, profanation.
Olivia
[to Maria and attendants] Give us the place alone, we will hear this divinity. (1.5.203-10)
Viola’s language here, mixing a sense of conspiracy (’secret’) and sexuality (’maidenhead’) with religious devotion (’divinity’) and wickedness (’profanation’), is a potent linguistic cocktail which works with intoxicating effect on Olivia. Now she knows who Olivia is and has her alone the scene reverts temporarily to its origins and Olivia asks Viola: ‘Now sir, what is your text?’ (1.5.211). Viola’s reply, ‘Most sweet lady’ (1.5.212), is interrupted by the now impatient Olivia, and the awkwardness of the next few lines of textual conceit ends with Viola returning to her strategy of directness with: ‘Good madam, let me see your face’ (1.5.220). As Olivia recognizes, Viola is now out of her text, and this is presumably what appeals to Olivia and leads her to ‘draw the curtain and show you the picture’ (1.5.223). By unveiling here Olivia reveals herself while Viola remains disguised. Not only does Olivia reveal her physical face, but her comment immediately following the lifting of the veil (’Look you sir, such a one I was this present. Is’t not well done? (1.5.224)) reveals her characteristic vanity, a vanity that Viola’s reply (’Excellently done, if God did all’ (1.5.226)) undermines by implying that her beauty may be artificial (owing more to make-up than natural looks).
Feste does indeed ‘mend’, though we could argue that he also rends. The bitterness of this attack on his character from Malvolio simmers through the play, resurfacing at the end with his chilling lines to the humiliated steward: ‘but do you remember, “Madam, why laugh you at such a barren rascal, an you smile not, he’s gagged” - and thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges’ (5.1.364-7). This suggests a vengeful Feste who har- bours a grudge and reminds his victim of the repayment for past injuries, though there are other interpretations possible (see Warren, p. 67). Feste is not a simple clown figure. Though his name suggests a festival figure he remains somewhat detached from the action, somehow not really participating while at the same time setting the mood for the play (which, as we have seen in our discussion of Orsino and Viola, is something that can be claimed for other characters).
Of Feste, Michael Billington asks: ‘What is the key line about him? Is it that he is a corrupter of words?’ (1990, p. 63) and we see him fulfilling this function particularly effectively in the scene where he claims this of himself, a scene in which he and Viola exchange some droll witticisms: