Essay
A* Twelfth Night Extract Exemplar Essay 1
Act 1, Scene 4; the Duke Orsino sends Cesario (Viola in disguise) to woo the Countess Olivia.
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Twelfth Night extract – practice essay 1Specimen paper
This extract, taking place in the expository stage of the play, is significant not only for its
introduction of the inciting force of Twelfth Night – namely, the Duke Orsino’s courtship of Olivia
through Viola (disguised as Cesario) – but also for the depiction of comic tropes central to
Renaissance comedies, including cross-dressing and the farce of human folly, which both act as
obstacles to Viola and Orsino’s union and by extension, the comic resolution. These obstacles create
the dramatic irony inherent to the comedy in which the audience can delight at the expense of the
struggles of the protagonists.
Immediately, the cross-dressing of Viola as Cesario is evident in the stage direction indicating
‘[Viola in man’s attire]’; shaping the classic Shakespearean transvestite comedy (along with As You
Like It and The Merchant of Venice), the complications created by a male actor (only men could
perform on stage in Elizabethan times) playing a female character disguised as a man form the crux
of the dramatic ironic fundamental to the comedy of Twelfth Night, given that an exclusive bond is
formed between Viola and the audience in being aware of her dual situation. That Valentine (and all
the other characters) is not aware of this, and instead views Cesario’s employment as permanent,
enhances the strength of this bond and therefore the dramatic irony – the direct address of the
utterance ‘you are like to be much advanced’ represents the deception of the disguise, and perhaps
could constitute subtle satire by Shakespeare that feudalism (the advancement through society by
way of rank) also can be so easily deceived by a disguise. Alternatively, Orsino’s perception of Viola
as ‘already…no stranger’ could be another example of dramatic irony for an informed audience, who
will recognise Viola’s charming of the Duke (emphasised in its briskness by the word ‘already’) as a
consequence of Orsino’s love for the disguised Cesario. If the Duke was taken by Viola at this stage,
after all, as a man, then it is not surprising that critics have increasingly begun to view Twelfth Night
as a homoerotic drama, although the importance of Orsino as a potential homosexual is often
dismissed in terms of challenging the comedy and the three typically heterosexual marriages.
Duke Orsino’s heavily imperative second utterance in this extract, including clauses such as
‘address thy gait unto her’, ‘be not denied access’ and ‘stand at her doors’, really expresses the farce
of human folly when we consider that Orsino seems not to love Countess Olivia - clearly
demonstrated by the baroque opening scene of the play, in which he addressed the concept of love
instead of her through a conceit (‘O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou’) - and neither is she
with him. Subsequently, the efforts of his courtship seem futile and somewhat absurd; to an
informed audience, Shakespeare creates dramatic irony through staging choices as the Duke’s real
suitor, Viola, is present directly next to him. In addition, building on the characterisation of the as yet
unseen Olivia (presented through the simile ‘like a cloistress’ in the opening scene), further irony
arises out of the fears of Viola that Olivia will ‘be so abandoned to her sorrow as it is spoke (that) she
never will admit (her)’. In reality, the ‘sorrow’ she basks in following the death of her brother is
almost entirely a consequence of her refusal to court her inappropriate suitors (Orsino and Sir
Andrew), and so when Viola arrives as the young, beautiful Cesario and Olivia is uncontrollably
enamoured by ‘him’, Shakespeare quite overtly demonstrates that she is hardly a ‘cloistress’. Thus,
comedy is created by the way in which the audience can laugh at the folly of not just the Duke
Orsino, but also of Olivia for her excessive mourning and subsequent attempts to act as something
she is not at a time when people did not live much longer than 40 years old, meaning we delight in
the absurdity of her false initial depiction and by extension, the incomprehensible idea of knowingly
wasting one’s life when it was so short in Elizabethan times.
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