Chaps. 15-17 Summary and Analysis

Twelfth Night

pp. 226-246

Twelfth Night is a zany comedy that is best performed at a fast exuberant pace. Everyone seems quite mad including the shipwrecked Viola, who immediately falls in love with Orsini. The critic C. L. Barber calls the play a festive comedy, but it has a strongly Nietzschean tendency of anarchy as well. The lusty Orsini seeks Olivia, and ends up using Viola, disguised as a boy as his go-between. The play develops with Orsini leading a wild celebration that is not dragged down by other characters. There is a sort of duel between the two leading ladies, Viola and Olivia. The author sees that Olivia, in a way, falls in love with the Viola disguised as a boy, though her love ends up with Cesario, and the author thinks that this has lesbian implications.

The...