I was excited to start out with this play, I must admit. I am following the schedule laid out by the creator of the Shakespeare 2020 project, and it's fun to have someone else decide when I should read these plays. With that said, I know 12N pretty well. I've read it dozens of times and taught it a couple of times. Whenever people tell me that they don't like Shakespeare or are uncertain what to read of Shakespeare, I often tell them to read 12N or Much Ado.
I'm going to talk about three areas that I found myself mulling over during this year's reading of the play.
1. Emotional Willingness: Viola and Sebastian have never really seemed very much like twins. I have tended to just accept that they are brother/sister and the cross-dressing and all to reach the resolution. I've admired Viola but she's no Beatrice or Lady Macbeth. But, for this reading, I really saw how, emotionally, Viola and Sebastian are very similar.
It stems from how quickly they fall in love. Viola is just in love with Duke Orsino from the second that we see her in his court. There's not much of Orsino in the text at all and you really do have to make some leaps in judgement to belief that Orsino is worthy of Viola's love, but that's for a different story. Sebastian loves/trusts Anthony immediately; then, he goes along right away with Olivia and marries her.
I've usually read it as amusing and quick because it needs to be quick--the play is ending and you gotta wrap up those plots! But I saw it somewhat differently this time. Both Viola and Sebastian fall in love quickly but they don't fall out of love. Is it a way of looking at the world, engaging your first impression, and sticking with it? Is it why people can meet in high school, marry each other, and live very happy lives together? That wasn't my type of love so perhaps the more trusting nature of Viola/Sebastian has been foreign to me until I became a mother and did fall immediately in love with a human being. I'm not sure, but I'm glad that I can start to understand that emotional trust may not just be a clever play-ending move. It might just be how some people truly engage with the world. (However, poor Olivia, though--she deserves better!)
2. Humoral Madness: In the spring of 2008, I took the most fabulous graduate course with a visiting professor Dr. Ivo Kamps. We studied the Early Modern understanding of Madness, and I simply adored the the class. We did study 12N as part of the course. The language of humoral madness expresses itself mainly in the Maria/SirToby Belch/Sir Andre Aguecheek/Malvolio scenes, when the trio of Maria/Belch/Aguecheek are trying to devise punishment for Malvolio. Throughout their discussion, they offer reasons why Malvolio is straight-laced and, especially Maria, seems to connect it to a humoral imbalance.
In case you don't know, in the Early Modern understanding of bodily health, there were four humours: yellow bile, black bile, phlegm, and blood. To be in good health, there was a balance of these humours; however, more often, humours were unbalanced, causing, they believed, disease and emotional fluctuations. There's no proof that Shakespeare believed in humoral theory, but he placed it in his plays quite a bit. It makes sense. It's an easy way of connecting to a current (to early modern audiences) knowledge base and it allows the audience to easily see both why a character might be ostracized and how others inside the play view an ostracized character.
What I liked about my current reading this time was that I could clearly see how Maria uses humoral imbalance not to convince herself that Malvolio is a problem but to convince Belch/Aguecheek that something should be done to Malvolio. Maria functions like the author in this way. She manipulates a current belief so that her purpose can be fulfilled. She's a canny lass, that one. If you're reading it, look to how she uses humoral color theory combined with emotional and physical appearances to paint a picture of Malvolio that Belch/Aguecheek easily grasp.
3. Malvolio's Revenge: This one is deeply personal to me.
Poor Malvolio--fancies himself in love thanks to a manufactured letter, humiliated, locked in a mental asylum, mocked while in said asylum...sure he gets that great line "I'll be revenged on the whole pack you!"but, wow, I want to see his revenge. I mean, we've all somewhat been in that sort of situation. And, the more I read this play and teach this play, the more horror I have for Malvolio's situation. It's played for laughs, of course, but I think that's what Shakeapeare wants you to do. He wants his audience to feel arrogant and to laugh at this poor fool who was easily tricked. Shakespeare wants us to be on the Maria/Belch side of things, feeling confident and getting our laughs from watching someone suffer.
But that's where the genius comes in to play. Why should we laugh when others are suffering? Why do we want to share in the Maria/Belch bond of "winners?" Why do we want to laugh at a person who, if we're being brutally honest with ourselves, could easily be us? At times, we're all one silly incident away from being humiliated and locked up against our will and disbelieved. And that's genius. Shakespeare needs us to think about these aspects, to realize the dissonance inherent in watching a play and cheering for bad to befall someone who's just a bit different. I love that Shakespeare makes me think.
Ok--those were the three things that stuck out to me during this reading of 12N. Feel free to comment, if you like. If you feel differently about any of these points, it's okay to share that. I really just love sharing ideas and hearing others opinions. My ideas on all of these pieces has changed dramatically as I had more experiences, met more people, and heard more people's strong and confident voices. I'm just one crazy voice among a few billion, but I hope you've enjoyed seeing inside my mind for a little bit. I'm off to Henry VI next...if I can control my desire to read the tetralogies out of historical chronology and in written chronology instead!
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