Authors: William Shakespeare
Twelfth Night (28 page)
Shakespeare’s productivity rate slowed in the Jacobean years, not because of age or some personal trauma, but because there were frequent outbreaks of plague, causing the theaters to be closed for long periods. The King’s Men were forced to spend many months on the road. Between November 1603 and 1608, they were to be found at various towns in the south and Midlands, though Shakespeare probably did not tour with them by this time. He had bought a large house back home in Stratford and was accumulating other property. He may indeed have stopped acting soon after the new king took the throne. With the London theaters closed so much of the time and a large repertoire on the stocks, Shakespeare seems to have focused his energies on writing a few long and complex tragedies that could have been played on demand at court:
Othello, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus
, and
Cymbeline
are among his longest and poetically grandest plays.
Macbeth
only survives in a shorter text, which shows signs of adaptation after Shakespeare’s death. The bitterly satirical
Timon of Athens
, apparently a collaboration with Thomas Middleton that may have failed on the stage, also belongs to this period. In comedy, too, he wrote longer and morally darker works than in the Elizabethan period, pushing at the very bounds of the form in
Measure for Measure
and
All’s Well That Ends Well
.
From 1608 onward, when the King’s Men began occupying the indoor Blackfriars playhouse (as a winter house, meaning that they only used the outdoor Globe in summer?), Shakespeare turned to a more romantic style. His company had a great success with a revived and altered version of an old pastoral play called
Mucedorus
. It even featured a bear. The younger dramatist John Fletcher, meanwhile, sometimes working in collaboration with Francis Beaumont, was pioneering a new style of tragicomedy, a mix of romance and royal-ism laced with intrigue and pastoral excursions. Shakespeare experimented with this idiom in
Cymbeline
and it was presumably with his blessing that Fletcher eventually took over as the King’s Men’s company dramatist. The two writers apparently collaborated on three
plays in the years 1612–14: a lost romance called
Cardenio
(based on the love-madness of a character in Cervantes’
Don Quixote
)
, Henry VIII
(originally staged with the title “All Is True”), and
The Two Noble Kinsmen
, a dramatization of Chaucer’s “Knight’s Tale.” These were written after Shakespeare’s two final solo-authored plays,
The Winter’s Tale
, a self-consciously old-fashioned work dramatizing the pastoral romance of his old enemy Robert Greene, and
The Tempest
, which at one and the same time drew together multiple theatrical traditions, diverse reading, and contemporary interest in the fate of a ship that had been wrecked on the way to the New World.
The collaborations with Fletcher suggest that Shakespeare’s career ended with a slow fade rather than the sudden retirement supposed by the nineteenth-century Romantic critics who read Prospero’s epilogue to
The Tempest
as Shakespeare’s personal farewell to his art. In the last few years of his life Shakespeare certainly spent more of his time in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he became further involved in property dealing and litigation. But his London life also continued. In 1613 he made his first major London property purchase: a freehold house in the Blackfriars district, close to his company’s indoor theater.
The Two Noble Kinsmen
may have been written as late as 1614, and Shakespeare was in London on business a little over a year before he died of an unknown cause at home in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1616, probably on his fifty-second birthday.
About half the sum of his works were published in his lifetime, in texts of variable quality. A few years after his death, his fellow actors began putting together an authorized edition of his complete
Comedies, Histories and Tragedies
. It appeared in 1623, in large “Folio” format. This collection of thirty-six plays gave Shakespeare his immortality. In the words of his fellow dramatist Ben Jonson, who contributed two poems of praise at the start of the Folio, the body of his work made him “a monument without a tomb”:
And art alive still while thy book doth live
And we have wits to read and praise to give …
He was not of an age, but for all time!
A CHRONOLOGY
1589–91
?
Arden of Faversham
(possible part authorship)
1589–92
The Taming of the Shrew
1589–92
?
Edward the Third
(possible part authorship)
1591
The Second Part of Henry the Sixth
, originally called
The First Part of the Contention betwixt the Two Famous
Houses of York and Lancaster
(element of coauthorship possible)
1591
The Third Part of Henry the Sixth
, originally called
The
True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York
(element of
coauthorship probable)
1591–92
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
1591–92; perhaps revised 1594
The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus
(probably cowritten with, or revising an earlier version by, George Peele)
1592
The First Part of Henry the Sixth
, probably with Thomas Nashe and others
1592/94
King Richard the Third
1593
Venus and Adonis
(poem)
1593–94
The Rape of Lucrece
(poem)
1593–1608
Sonnets
(154 poems, published 1609 with
A Lover’s
Complaint
, a poem of disputed authorship)
1592–94/ 1600–03
Sir Thomas More
(a single scene for a play originally by Anthony Munday, with other revisions by Henry Chettle, Thomas Dekker, and Thomas Heywood)
1594
The Comedy of Errors
1595
Love’s Labour’s Lost
1595–97
Love’s Labour’s Won
(a lost play, unless the original
title for another comedy)
1595–96
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
1595–96
The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet
1595–96
King Richard the Second
1595–97
The Life and Death of King John
(possibly earlier)
1596–97
The Merchant of Venice
1596–97
The First Part of Henry the Fourth
1597–98
The Second Part of Henry the Fourth
1598
Much Ado About Nothing
1598–99
The Passionate Pilgrim
(20 poems, some not by Shakespeare)
1599
The Life of Henry the Fifth
1599
“To the Queen” (epilogue for a court performance)
1599
As You Like It
1599
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar
1600–01
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
(perhaps
revising an earlier version)
1600–01
The Merry Wives of Windsor
(perhaps revising version
of 1597–99)
1601
“Let the Bird of Loudest Lay” (poem, known since
1807 as “The Phoenix and Turtle” [turtle-dove])
1601
Twelfth Night, or What You Will
1601–02
The Tragedy of Troilus and Cressida
1604
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice
1604
Measure for Measure
1605
All’s Well That Ends Well
1605
The Life of Timon of Athens
, with Thomas Middleton
1605–06
The Tragedy of King Lear
1605–08
? contribution to
The Four Plays in One
(lost, except for
A Yorkshire Tragedy
, mostly by Thomas Middleton)
1606
The Tragedy of Macbeth
(surviving text has additional
scenes by Thomas Middleton)
1606–07
The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra
1608
The Tragedy of Coriolanus
1608
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
, with George Wilkins
1610
The Tragedy of Cymbeline
1611
The Winter’s Tale
1611
The Tempest
1612–13
Cardenio
, with John Fletcher (survives only in later
adaptation called
Double Falsehood
by Lewis Theobald)
1613
Henry VIII
(
All Is True
), with John Fletcher
1613–14
The Two Noble Kinsmen
, with John Fletcher
AND VIEWING
CRITICAL APPROACHES
Atkin, Graham,
Twelfth Night: Character Studies
(2008). Detailed account of the characters.
Barber, C. L.,
Shakespeare’s Festive Comedies
(1959). One of the best critical books on Shakespeare ever written.
Berry, Ralph,
Changing Styles in Shakespeare
(1981). Chapter 6, “The Season of
Twelfth Night
,” pp. 109–19, argues that 1950 was the point when sensibilities changed and it became a less comic, more serious play.
Ford, John R.,
Twelfth Night: A Guide to the Play
(2006). Useful chapters on textual history, sources, structure, themes, critical approaches and performance.
Frye, Northrop,
A Natural Perspective: The Development of Shakespearean Comedy and Romance
(1965). A slim work of supreme power.
Hotson, Leslie,
The First Night of Twelfth Night
(1954). Fascinating account, with ingenious detective work and lots of historical details, though the case for the occasion of the first night is not finally proven.
Maslen, R. W.,
Shakespeare and Comedy
(2005). Sets the Elizabethan comedies in the context of both theatrical traditions and anti-stage polemic.
Massai, Sonia, ed.,
William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night: A Sourcebook
(2007). Thorough account of social context, critical history, and performance.
Palmer, D. J., ed.,
Shakespeare: Twelfth Night: A Casebook
(1972). Broad collection of early criticism and influential twentieth-century studies.
Potter, Lois,
Twelfth Night: Text and Performance
(1985). Part 1, a useful introduction to the text; Part 2 focuses on productions from 1969 to 1982.
Smith, Bruce R.,
William Shakespeare: Twelfth Night: Texts and Contexts
(2001). Detailed account of socio-cultural context.
White, R. S., ed.,
Twelfth Night: New Casebooks
(1996). Theoretically informed selection of essays.
Billington, Michael,
Approaches to Twelfth Night
, Directors’ Shakespeare (1990). Illuminating accounts by a variety of modern directors.
Brockbank, Philip, ed.,
Players of Shakespeare
(1985). Actors’ firsthand accounts: chapter 4, Donald Sinden on playing Malvolio, pp. 41–66.
Edmondson, Paul,
Twelfth Night
, Shakespeare Handbooks (2005). Detailed commentary, very good on performance.
Fielding, Emma,
Twelfth Night
, Actors on Shakespeare (2002). Thoughtful, engaging account of playing Viola with the RSC.
Jackson, Russell, and Robert Smallwood, eds.,
Players of Shakespeare 2
(1988). Zoë Wanamaker as Viola in
Twelfth Night
, pp. 81–92.
Nunn, Trevor,
William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night
(1996). Screenplay of film plus introduction.
Parsons, Keith, and Pamela Mason,
Shakespeare in Performance
(1995). Useful introduction by Elizabeth Schafer, lavish illustrations, pp. 227–32.
Pennington, Michael,
Twelfth Night: A User’s Guide
(2000). Detailed account, arising from English Shakespeare Company’s 1991 production, unpretentious and readable.
Smallwood, Robert, ed.,
Players of Shakespeare 5
(2003). Zoë Waites and Matilda Ziegler on playing Viola and Olivia, pp. 60–73.
Twelfth Night
, directed by John Sichel (1969, DVD 2009). Originally produced for television, with Ralph Richardson as Sir Toby, Alec Guinness as Malvolio, and Tommy Steele as a youthful Feste, with Joan Plowright playing both Viola and Sebastian.
Twelfth Night
, The Animated Tales directed by Maria Muat (1995, DVD 2007). Excellent Welsh-Russian collaboration with screenplay adapted by Leon Garfield, voiced by Alec McCowan, Michael Kitchen, and Suzanne Burden.
Twelfth Night
, directed by John Gorrie for BBC Shakespeare (1980, DVD 2005). One of the best in this series, starring Alec McCowan, Robert Hardy, Robert Lindsay, and Felicity Kendall as Viola.
Twelfth Night
, directed by Kenneth Branagh (1988, DVD 2004). Based on Renaissance Theatre Company’s stage version, starring Richard Briers,
Frances Barber, and Anton Lesser.
Twelfth Night
, directed by Tim Supple (1988, DVD 2005). Starring Parminder
Nagra and Chiwetel Ejiofor in a contemporary update, set in multicultural London.
Twelfth Night
, directed by Trevor Nunn (1996, DVD 2001). Star-studded cast in a highly intelligent and nuanced reading, including Imogen Stubbs, Toby Stephens, and Helena Bonham-Carter.
She’s the Man
, directed by Andy Fickman (2006). Updated American high-school rom-com starring Amanda Bynes as Viola and Channing Tatum as Duke Orsino.
1.
John Manningham,
The Diary of John Manningham of the Middle Temple, 1602–1603
(1976), p. 48.
2.
Leslie Hotson,
The First Night of Twelfth Night
(1954).
3.
Leonard Digges’ prefatory poem to William Shakespeare,
Poems
(1640), reprinted in 1979 with introduction and notes by Holger M. Klein.
4.
Samuel Pepys,
The Diary of Samuel Pepys
, 20 January 1669, ed. Robert Latham and William Matthews, Vol. 9, 1668–69 (1976).
5.
John R. Ford,
Twelfth Night: A Guide to the Play
(2006), p. 137.
6.
Ford,
Twelfth Night
, p. 139.
7.
Charles Lamb, “On Some of the Old Actors,” from
Essays of Elia
(1835), p. 149.
8.
William Archer, “
Twelfth Night
at the Lyceum,”
Macmillan’s Magazine
, Vol. L, August 1884, pp. 271–9.
9.
Archer, “
Twelfth Night
at the Lyceum.”
10.
William Archer, review of
Twelfth Night
in
The Theatrical “World” of 1894
(1895), pp. 22–31.
11.
George Bernard Shaw quoted in
Shakespearean Criticism
, Vol. 26, ed. Michael Magoulias (1995), p. 196.
12.
George Odell,
Shakespeare from Betterton to Irving
, Vol. 2 (1921), p. 455.
13.
Ford,
Twelfth Night
, p. 143, quoting Elizabeth Story Donno’s
New Cambridge Shakespeare
(2004), p. 31.
14.
Michael Billington, “
Twelfth Night:
A Stage History,” in
Directors’ Shakespeare: Approaches to
“
Twelfth Night
” by Bill Alexander and others, ed. Michael Billington (1990), pp. ix–xxxi.
15.
Billington, “
Twelfth Night:
A Stage History.”
16.
Harley Granville-Barker,
Prefaces to Shakespeare
, Vol. 6, p. 30.
17.
Billington, “
Twelfth Night:
A Stage History.”
18.
Grenville Vernon,
The Commonweal
, Vol. 7, 6 December 1940.
19.
T. C. Worsley,
New Statesman and Nation
, Vol. XL, No. 1029, 25 November 1950, pp. 498–500.
20.
J. C. Trewin,
Illustrated London News
, Vol. 217, No. 5825, 9 December 1950, p. 962.
21.
John Gielgud,
An Actor and His Time
(1979), p. 176.
22.
Peter Fleming,
Spectator
, Vol. 194, No. 6617, 22 April 1955, p. 502.
23.
Billington, “
Twelfth Night:
A Stage History.”
24.
Henry Hewes,
Saturday Review
, New York, Vol. XL, No. 29, 20 July 1957, p. 26.
25.
Arnold Edinborough, “Canada’s Permanent Elizabethan Theatre,”
Shakespeare Quarterly
, Vol. VIII, No. 4, Autumn 1957, pp. 511–14.
26.
John Wain,
Observer
, 27 April 1958.
27.
Alan Brien,
Spectator
, Vol. 200, No. 6775, 2 May 1958.
28.
Peter Jackson,
Plays and Players
, Vol. 5, No. 9, June 1958, p. 13.
29.
Robert Speaight,
Shakespeare Quarterly
, Vol. XI, No. 4, Autumn 1960, pp. 449–51.
30.
Shakespearean Criticism
, Vol. 26, p. 199.
31.
Billington, “
Twelfth Night:
A Stage History.”
32.
Billington, “
Twelfth Night:
A Stage History.”
33.
Ford,
Twelfth Night
, p. 155.
34.
Ford,
Twelfth Night
, p. 155.
35.
Ford,
Twelfth Night
, p. 157.
36.
Billington, “
Twelfth Night:
A Stage History.”
37.
Kenneth S. Rothwell,
A History of Shakespeare on Screen: A Century of
Film and Television
(1999), p. 11.
38.
Ford,
Twelfth Night
, p. 160.
39.
Ford,
Twelfth Night
, p. 163.
40.
Ford,
Twelfth Night
, p. 161.
41.
Ford,
Twelfth Night
, p. 161.
42.
Ford,
Twelfth Night
, p. 161.
43.
Percy Bysshe Shelley,
A Defence of Poetry
(1821).
44.
Ralph Berry,
Changing Styles in Shakespeare
(1981).
45.
Irving Wardle, London
Times
, 7 August 1970.
46.
Hilary Spurling,
Spectator
, 30 August 1969.
47.
Anne Barton,
Twelfth Night
RSC program note, 1969.
48.
Berry,
Changing Styles in Shakespeare
.
49.
Lois Potter,
Twelfth Night: Text and Performance
(1985).
50.
Sheila Bannock,
Stratford-upon-Avon Herald
, 29 August 1969.
51.
Robert Speaight,
Shakespeare Quarterly
, Vol. 20, 1969.
52.
Jeremy Kingston,
Punch
, 3 September 1969.
53.
Wardle,
The Times
, 7 August 1970.
54.
Michael Magoulias, ed.,
Shakespearean Criticism
, Vol. 26 (1995).
55.
James Fenton, London
Sunday Times
, 24 April 1983.
56.
Magoulias,
Shakespearean Criticism
.
57.
Nicholas de Jongh,
Evening Standard
, 26 May 1994.
58.
Ian Judge,
Twelfth Night
RSC program note, 1994.
59.
James Treadwell,
Spectator
, 6 December 1997.
60.
Carole Woddis,
What’s On
, 3 December 1997.
61.
Janice Wardle, “
Twelfth Night:
‘One Face, One Voice, One Habit, and Two Persons!,’ ” in
Talking Shakespeare
, ed. Deborah Cartmell and Michael Scott (2001).
62.
Michael Billington,
Guardian
, 27 November 1997.
63.
Charles Spencer,
Daily Telegraph
, 27 November 1997.
64.
Judi Dench quoted by Wardle, “Twelfth Night.”
65.
Berry,
Changing Styles in Shakespeare
.
66.
Bill Alexander, “A Director’s View—A Personal Essay,” in
Twelfth Night
, ed. Neil King, Longman Study Texts (1989).
67.
Joseph H. Summers, RSC
Twelfth Night
program, 1969.
68.
Alexander in King,
Twelfth Night
.
69.
Elizabeth Schafer, “Twelfth Night,” in Parson and Mason (eds.),
Shakespeare in Performance
, 1995.
70.
François Laroque,
Cahiers Élisabethains
, No. 32, October 1987.
71.
Alexander, “A Director’s View.”
72.
Patrick Carnegy,
Spectator
, 14 May 2005.
73.
Donald Sinden quoted in “ ‘There is no slander in an allowed fool’: Comics, Clowns and Fools,” in Judith Cook,
Shakespeare’s Players
(1983).
74.
Lisa Jardine,
Twelfth Night
RSC program note, 1994.
75.
Jan Kott,
Twelfth Night
RSC program note, 1994.
76.
Magoulias,
Shakespearean Criticism
.
77.
Irving Wardle, London
Times
, 23 August 1974.
78.
Michael Billington,
Guardian
, 23 August 1974.
79.
Bernard Crick,
Times Higher Educational Supplement
, 14 March 1975.
80.
Jane Lapotaire quoted in Judith Cook,
Women in Shakespeare
(1980).
81.
Potter,
Twelfth Night
.
82.
Nicholas de Jongh,
Evening Standard
, 11 May 2001.
83.
Patrick Carnegy,
Spectator
, 19 May 2001.
84.
Zoë Waites and Matilda Ziegler, “Viola and Olivia in Twelfth Night,” in
Players of Shakespeare 5
, ed. Robert Smallwood (2003).
85.
John Caird, interview with Michael Billington,
Director’s Shakespeare: Approaches to Twelfth Night
(1990).
86.
Terry Hands, interview with Billington,
Approaches to Twelfth Night
.
87.
Michael Coveney,
Financial Times
, 6 February 1975.
88.
John Caird, interview with Billington,
Approaches to Twelfth Night
.
89.
Jan Kott,
Shakespeare Our Contemporary
(1964).
90.
Potter,
Twelfth Night
.
91.
Elizabeth Schafer, “Twelfth Night,” in
Shakespeare in Performance
, ed. Keith Parsons and Pamela Mason (1995).
92.
Carnegy,
Spectator
, 14 May 2005.
93.
Nigel Hess,
Twelfth Night
RSC program note, 1994.
94.
Peter Thomson,
Shakespeare Survey
, Vol. 28, 1975.
95.
Thomson,
Shakespeare Survey
.
96.
Barton,
Twelfth Night
RSC program note.
97.
Wardle, “
Twelfth Night.”
98.
W. E. Burghardt Du Bois,
The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches
(1903), chapter 7.
