Activity Four: The first thing you should know about a Shakespearean play, before you begin reading it, is what it is about. Click on the picture above to link to the summary of the play. In your notes, using ten lines or less, write your own summary based on information from the article.
Activity 5: Read the passage below and answer the following questions in your notes.
1.
During what part of Shakespeare's career was Twelfth Night written?
2.
What type of play is it?
3.
What themes are contained in the play?
4.
What is the title of the play a reference to?
HISTORY OF THE PLAY
Twelfth Night is the only one of Shakespeare's plays to have an
"alternative" title: the
play is actually called
Twelfth Night: or, What You
Will. Critics are
not quite sure what the play's two titles mean, but "Twelfth
Night" is usually considered
to be a reference to Epiphany, or the twelfth
night of the Christmas celebration
(January 6). In Shakespeare's day, this
holiday was celebrated as
a festival in which everything was turned
upside-down--a little like
the upside-down world of Illyria.
Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare's "transvestite comedies," a
category which also includes
As You Like It and, to a lesser degree, The
Merchant of Venice.
These plays feature female protagonists who, for one
reason or another, have to
disguise themselves as young men. It is
important to remember that
in Shakespeare's day, all the parts were played
by men, so Viola would actually
have been a boy pretending to be a girl
pretending to be a boy. Some
contemporary critics have found a great deal
of interest in the homoerotic
implications of these comedies.
Twelfth Night is a fun, entertaining play to watch, and there are
several movie adaptations.
The 1996 version, directed by Trevor Nunn and
starring Helena Bonham Carter,
is probably the best and most enjoyable of
these.
Activity 6: In your notes list the major characters and a brief bit on each of them along with their relationship to one another.