SOURCE: Dean, Paul. “‘Comfortable Doctrine’: Twelfth Night and the Trinity.” The Review of English Studies, 52, no. 208 (2001): 500-15.

In the following essay, Dean analyzes Twelfth Night as the union of Renaissance Platonism and Augustinian theology, contending that Shakespeare employed the device of twins in order to explore the notion that two individuals are united as one through love, a concept that was understood by Neoplatonists to be analogous to the doctrine of the Trinity.

One cannot read far into Twelfth Night without noticing the extent to which Shakespeare is fascinated, in this play, by triads and their possible resolution into monads. Olivia's ‘liver, brain and heart’ are to be supplied, in Orsino's imagination, with ‘one self king’ (I. i. 36-8); the Captain was ‘bred and born ❙ Not three hours' travel from this very place’ (I. ii. 20-1); Sir Toby tells Maria that Sir Andrew ‘has three thousand ducats a...