This is a summary of all the critical readings and productions over time that I used when studying and revising Twelfth Night for my A Level English Lit Paper 1. It's thorough and detailed, covering early critics, Viola, Malvolio, Sir Toby, Feste, Orsino, Olivia, Antonio, ambiguous ending, conflict...
Early critics took particular interest and enjoyment in the Malvolio plot e/g John
Manningham (1602) and Leonard Digges (1640). Charles the first saw the play in
1632 and suggested it be renamed ‘Malvolio’
Samuel Pepys (1663) called it a ‘silly play not relating at all to the name or day’ -
he seems to have missed the theme of reversals which are reminiscent of the
12th Night festival (Epiphany Eve) where the cake was served with a bean and a
pea hidden inside and those who found them in their slice became the mock
King and Queen of the evening, amongst other reversals of social order.
Samuel Johnson (18th century) thought it was ‘truly comic’ but was distinctly
lacking in moral lessons and ‘exhibits no just picture of real life’. He enjoyed
Malvolio's plot as an example of the consequences of pride.
William Hazlitt (1817, romantic critic) focused on character criticism, seeing
Viola as ‘the great secret and charm’ of the play, saying that ‘we have an
understanding of the clown’ and that ‘we feel regard for Malvolio’. He also
praised it as a comedy, calling it ‘the most delightful of Shakespeare’s comedies.
Full of sweetness and pleasantry’ and that it ‘makes us laugh at the follies of
mankind, not despise them’.
Charles Lamb was a contemporary critic of Hazlitt’s who saw Malvolio as the
centre of dramatic interest, not Viola. He also proposed a distinctly sympathetic
interpretation of Malvolio suggesting that he ‘becomes comic but by accident’,
‘he is cold, austere, repelling; but dignified’ and generally sympathising with M’s
morality. His view that there is ‘no room for laughter’ in the gulling lead to Sir
Henry Irving’s 1884 portrayal of Malvolio whose ‘gaunt and sober’ performance
had an ‘innate dignity’, adding to the ‘pathos of his humiliation’.
A.C.Bradley (1904) shifted the focus of criticism onto Feste as a ‘distinctly
modern figure, wholeheartedly devoted to his profession, unable to make
personal relationships’, as ‘lord of himself’ and ‘our wise, happy, melodious fool’.
The fault of his criticism was to assess characters as though they were real
people and, what would be considered by later critics, to be an overly simplistic
and sentimental reading of Feste. Bradley argues that Feste’s name signifies 12 th
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