This week I wanted to address something we haven’t spent much time discussing and something I’ve been researching for the past couple of weeks - the mysterious title of our play. I found a few interesting theories and I want to briefly share them here.
It is no mystery that Twelfth Night, January 6th, is the last day of the Twelve days of Christmas, also known as Epiphany Eve. During the Tudor Period, Twelfth Night was the day ‘the world turned upside down’. A cake, containing a bean, would be consumed and whoever found this bean would be crowned Lord of Misrule. In this way, the royalty and the peasantry would switch places. These traditions are echoed in the play in many ways, the most obvious of which is Viola’s gender switch. Olivia’s preference of Cesario over other, wealthier suitors such as Orsino or Andrew can also be considered ‘upside down’. In reality, the whole play is chaotic and the festival of Twelfth Night parallels this perfectly.
This seems like a good explanation! But if that was the only hypothesis, this wouldn’t be a mystery. In 1954, J. leslie Hotson published a work called The First Night of Twelfth Night. In his book, Hoston leads us on a fascinating adventure through the court of Elizabeth I, the night of our play’s premiere and the arrival of the nobleman Virginio Orsino, Duke of Bracciano in England. To briefly summarize Hotson’s theory, there are records dating an unknown play performed by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (Shakespeare’s company, as we know) on the eve of January the 6th, 1600/1 at the Courth of Elizabeth I. Moreover, a nobleman by the name of Duke Orsino, was entertained by the Queen on this day. Hotson makes the conclusion that not only did Shakespeare name his play after the day of its performance at Court, but named one of the principal characters after a known nobleman of that time.
Of course with such poignant claims, comes even harsher criticism. Scholars accused Hotson of inattentiveness to details, particularly dates: “[Hotson] summarily dismissed the date, 1601-02, given in the calendar of the report as being ‘obviously…misdated by a year’” (Keen). These and other lesser theories populate the world of Academia.
As an actor, however, rather than focusing on facts and dates, I think it is far more useful to think of the title in terms of the holiday: excitement and music (Feste), people rebelling against the system (Malvolio, Maria) and the ‘upside-down’ chaos of that day (Olivia, Viola, Orsino).
Before I end, I have to mention the other part of the title. First of all, as we know, Twelfth Night; or, What You Will is the only Shakespeare play that has an alternate title. Some argue that this ‘what you will’ can mean ‘whatever’ as if Shakespeare is casting off the title, because he can’t think of anything to name his play. This seems a bit unlikely coming from a man who is the epitome of creativity. It is much more likely I believe that it is Shakespeare’s way of saying ‘take what you will from the play’ or ‘think of it what you will’, much the same way As You Like It echoes Rosalind’s line in the epilogue “to like as much of/this play as please you”.
P.S. I am leaving some references here for anyone who is interested, including a preview of Hotson’s book. Hopefully you found this interesting and useful!
No comments:
Post a Comment