[Shakespeare] Discussion of Twelfth Night next Tuesday, July 20 at 8pm EST - Please select a question!

[Richard Johnston]

Dear all,

I hope you haven't chosen a question because you're finding it impossible to
choose _only_ one... :)

Any last-minute volunteers? I have a few people in mind for some questions,
and I'll begin contacting them after lunch (EST).

See you tomorrow! If you're finishing up the play--enjoy!

Rich

On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 1:05 PM, Richard Johnston <rrjohnst at gmail.com>wrote:

> Dear friends,
>
>
>
> Just a reminder that our discussion of *Twelfth Night *will take place on
> *Tuesday, July 20 at 8pm EST.*
>
>
> I imagine many of you are reading the play today. I still need volunteers
> to prepare a brief kick-off response--just some thoughts to get us
> going--for several of our *discussion questions,* posted below. Peter
> Floyd has graciously taken Question 1. Please stake your claim by replying
> to all. Beginning tomorrow morning, I will be emailing some of you
> individually to assign questions.
>
>
> Happy reading! I look forward to our final conversation...
>
>
>
> All best,
>
>
>
> Richard
>
>
>
> *****
>
>
>
> *DISCUSSION QUESTIONS*
>
> * *
>
> *1. IF MUSIC BE THE FOOD OF LOVE, PLAY ON...*
>
> Peter Floyd
>
>
>
> "...Give me excess of it, that surfeiting, / The appetite may sicken, and
> so die" (1.1.1-3).
>
>
>
> These are the famous first lines of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Moved to
> the core by a few bars of music, Orsino orders his musican(s) to play them:
> "That strain again, it had a dying fall" (1.1.4). As the musicians find
> their place, Orsino describes the music's effect on him: "O, it came o'er my
> ear like the sweet sound / The breathes upon a bank of violets, / Stealing
> and giving odour" (1.1.5-7). But the music isn't as sweet the second time
> around. At the musicians play, Orsino complains, "Enough, no more, / 'Tis
> not so sweet now as it was before" (1.1.5-8). In the lines that follow, he
> reflects on the peculiar inconstancy of human appetites. "O spirit of love,
> how quick and fresh art thou, / That, notwithstanding thy capacity, /
> Receiveth as the sea. Nought enters there, / Of what validity and pitch
> soe'er, / But falls into abatement and low price / Even in a minute"
> (1.1.9-14).
>
>
>
> Thus, in fourteen lines--not coincidentally, perhaps, the length of a love
> sonnet--Shakespeare introduces one of Twelfth Night's central themes: *the
> paradoxical nature of human desires,* which frequently disappear the
> moment we attain our objects. How does Shakespeare develop this theme across
> the play? Where else do you see him grappling with it? More importantly,
> what questions about human nature and morality does it raise? Are our
> appetites and desires something to be embraced or rejected? Trusted or
> distrusted? How can we live in the moment without becoming bored with life?
> How can we forestall pleasure without becoming a "puritan" like Malvolio,
> whom the play and its characters mock wholeheartedly?
>
>
>
> *2. WOMEN AND MEN IN LOVE*
>
>
>
> In Act 2, scene 4, Orsino and Viola (disguised as Cesario) discuss Orsino's
> hopeless passion for Olivia, before turning to a more general discussion on
> the finer points of love. Olivia/Cesario hints at the love "she" bears for
> Orsino: "Say that some lady, as perhaps there is, / Hath for your love as
> great a pang of heart / As you have for Olivia. You cannot love her. / You
> tell her so. Must she not then be answered?" (2.4.93-6). Orsino is
> dumbfounded by the idea that a woman could love as deeply as he loves:
> "There is no woman's sides / Can bide the beating of so strong a passion /
> As love doth give my heart, no woman's heart / So big, to hold so much. They
> lack retention. / Alas their love may be called appetite, / No motion of the
> liver, but the palette, / That suffer surfeit, cloyment and revolt. / But
> mine is all as hungry as the sea, / And can digest as much..." (2.4.97-105).
>
>
>
> In essence, Orsino redefines *a woman's love *as "appetite," something
> that "may sicken, and so die." (1.1.3). *A man's love,* he says,
> transcends the vicissitudes of human appetite. But wait, hasn't Orsino just
> advised Viola/Cesario to marry a woman younger in years than s/he, precisely
> because a man's affections are less likely to stick?
>
>
>
> What questions is Shakespeare trying to raise through this debate? Whose
> side do you think he takes? Whose side do you take?
>
> * *
>
> *3. LOVE, LITERATURE, AND FALSEHOOD*
>
>
>
> The deeper we read into Twelfth Night, the harder it appears to identify,
> pin down, and define abstract ideas like "love." One place we see this is in
> the play's treatment of the very stuff the play is made of: words shaped
> into art. The "immortalizing power of literature" is a common theme in our
> literary tradition; many of Shakespeare's love sonnets focus on it. Other
> sonnets bring it into question, though, and there is no greater instance of
> this in his work than the moment in 1.5 where Olivia jocularly announces her
> plan to "leave the world no copy" (i.e. not marry and have children) and
> instead "give out diverse schedules of [her] beauty" (1.5.223-5). Does she
> really believe this will work? No, and it's clear what she's doing: by
> drawing attention of the impossibility of language to "capture" reality,
> she's reinforcing her earlier point that Olivia/Cesario's passionate message
> "from" Orsino (it's not entirely clear who wrote it, but it seems
> Viola/Cesario did) may be just that--words--and that t*he more "poetic"
> they are, the more likely they are to be false. *Consider this exchange a
> little earlier in the scene:
>
>
>
> Viola/Cesario: I will on with my speech in your praise, and then show you
> the heart of my message.
>
> Olivia: Come to what is important in't. I forgive you the praise.
>
> Viola: Alas, I tool great pains to study it, and 'tis poetical.
>
> Olivia: It is the more like to be feigned. I pray you keep it in.
> (1.5.176-81).
>
>
>
> Can you identify other moments in the play where Shakespeare calls into
> question the integrity of his artistic medium? Can you connect them with
> moments in other plays we have read this spring? How do you account for all
> these doubts Shakespeare casts on the character of words? How would you
> characterize Shakespeare's relationship language?
>
>
>
> *4. LOVE AND PLAY*
>
>
>
> Twelfth Night invites us to look at language, especially "poetic" language,
> with great skepticism. At the same time, though, it clearly relishes in the
> play of language--just as Hamlet enjoys his witty interchange with the first
> gravedigger, and the fool in King Lear exults in his verbal gymnastics.
> Furthermore, this *love of wordplay* we see time and time again in
> Shakespeare extends to something even bigger: *the love of play, of plays,
> of play-acting, of impersonation, of disguise.* How do you account for
> this? Is it Shakespeare celebrating his artistic medium? Questioning the
> nature of human identity (maybe we are all just a collection of roles)?
> Drawing attention to some deep need in the human spirit?
>
>
>
> Additionally, for all the gaps highlighted by the play between the real
> world and the world of play, there is one absolutely beautiful moment when
> the two come together. As you may have noticed while reading Twelfth Night,
> Sir Toby's expressions of love for Maria are often inspired by her
> cleverness in managing and directing the "play" on Malvolio. Is Maria's
> dramatic genius the reason Sir Toby falls in love with her and marries
> her--the only marriage actually to occur during the play?
>
>
>
> *5. COMEDY AND SADNESS*
>
>
>
> Scattered throughout this comedy are moments of intense hurt, frustration,
> and sadness. Some are obvious. The play begin's with Orsino's sadness;
> Olivia, the woman he pines for, can't return his or any man's love while she
> moans for her dead brother. Cast upon the shores of Illyria, Viola, too,
> believes she has lost her brother--likewise, her twin Sebastian believes he
> has lost a sister.
>
>
>
> Some of these moments of sadness are less obvious. Take the song "O
> Mistress Mine," a love song sung by Feste in 2.3; in this song, pleasure
> tasted today is tinged with grief by the uncertainty about what tomorrow
> holds in store for us: "Present mirth hath present laughter. / What's to
> come is still unsure" (2.3.46-7). At least, that's how I read it. How would
> characterize the tone of the song?
>
>
>
> Can you find other moments in the play where you detect an undercurrent of
> sadness or grief flowing beneath the play's antics? What is their dramatic
> purpose? Is it to provide "tragic relief," as some readers like to say that
> scenes of mirth in tragedies provide "comic relief" for their audiences, or
> is Shakespeare doing something else?
>
>
>
> *6. COMEDY AND TRAGEDY*
>
>
>
> In addition to its many instances of sadness or grief, there are moments in
> Twelfth Night where the action of the play comes close, even dangerously
> close, to something much darker, something much closer to tragedy. The
> practical joke played on Malvolio turns into something that has disturbed
> many readers: imprisonment in a makeshift "asylum" where everything Malvolio
> says in his defense is willfully construed as further evidence of his
> madness. (How would you direct this scene? Would you do it as straight
> comedy? Or would you draw attention to its darker features? How?) Near the
> end of the play, Malvolio storms off the stage vowing to "be avenged on the
> whole pack of you" (5.1.381). And then there's the moment a little earlier
> in the final act where Orsino seems quite intent on killing Viola/Cesario,
> rather than allowing "his" love for Olivia to continue. Reread Orsino's
> monologue at 5.1.15-29; Orsino's language is really, really dark. This, I
> think, is where Twelfth Night veers closest to tragedy, and you see this
> kind of trajectory in other comedies as well, for example A Midsummer
> Night's Dream.
>
>
>
> Shakespeare tests the boundary between comedy and tragedy in other ways as
> well. For example, there seems to be a recurrent question about whether
> mirth or sadness, happiness or sorrow serves as the "baseline" of human
> experience. Consider Feste's songs: "O Mistress Mine" (2.3.30ff), "Come
> Away, Death" (2.4.54), and the deeply enigmatic closing song "When That I
> Was a Little Tiny Boy" (5.1.392ff). Using these songs as starting points,
> consider the relationship between comedy and tragedy as they pertain to the
> world we live in. Is it complimentary? Hierarchical? Is the real world, the
> world we live in, primarily comic or tragic, or does it contain equal
> amounts of both? Is comedy something that springs from tragedy, allowing us
> to deal with or forget it? Or is tragedy something that ensues when we let
> the comic spirit run on for too long?
>
>
>
> *7. THE ENDING*
>
>
>
> In Act 1, Viola asks the Captain to disguise her as a man, so she can enter
> Olivia's service: "Conceal me what I am, and be my aid / For such disguise
> as haply shall become / The form of my intent" (1.2.55-7). We never see
> "Viola" again; at the end of the play, she is still in her disguise, and she
> is not going to put on her woman's weeds until her promised marriage to
> Orsino. What do you make of this? Many comedies are based on disguises and
> mistaken identities, and these typically end with unmaskings and a clearing
> up of confusion. In this play, we have a clearing up of confusion, but the
> unmasking is not complete. Why? We also don't get to see a marriage, another
> conventional ending point for comedies. Viola is going to marry Orsino, and
> her brother is going to marry Olivia, but we aren't invited to these
> celebrations. There IS one marriage in the play--Maria's to Sir Toby--but it
> happens completely offstage. This "ending" has puzzled critics. What do you
> make of it?
>
>
>
> *8. SKEPTICISM*
>
>
>
> "What's to come is still unsure" (2.3.47). Is Twelfth Night a skeptical
> play? Does the play mock Malvolio's "puritanism" because of his austerity
> and prudery--"Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no
> more cakes and ale" (2.3.104-5)"--or does the play express a deeper aversion
> to religion? Why or why not?
>
> --
> Richard Johnston
> Resident Tutor, Cabot House
> Teaching Fellow, Department of English
> Harvard University
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Richard Johnston
> Resident Tutor, Cabot House
> Teaching Fellow, Department of English
> Harvard University
>
>
>


-- 
Richard Johnston
Resident Tutor, Cabot House
Teaching Fellow, Department of English
Harvard University
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