Twelfth Night: New Critical Essays

305 Pages·2011·4.026 MB·English

by  James Schiffer (editor)

Twelfth Night
This volume in the Shakespeare Criticism series offers a range of approaches
to Twelfth Night, including its critical reception, performance history, and
relation to early modern culture.
James Schiffer’s extensive introduction surveys the play’s critical recep-
tion and performance history, while individual essays explore a variety of
topics relevant to a full appreciation of the play: early modern notions of
love, friendship, sexuality, madness, festive ritual, exoticism, social mobility,
and detection. The contributors approach these topics from a variety of per-
spectives, such as new critical, new historicist, cultural materialist, feminist
and queer theory, and performance criticism, occasionally combining several
approaches within a single essay.
The new essays from leading fi gures in the fi eld explore and extend the
key debates surrounding Twelfth Night, creating the ideal book for readers
approaching this text for the fi rst time or wishing to further their knowledge
of this stimulating, much loved play.
Contributors: Christa Jansohn, Ivo Kamps, Marcela Kostihová, Cynthia Lewis,
Catherine Lisak, Laurie E. Osborne, Patricia Parker, Elizabeth Pentland, Alan
W. Powers, Nathalie Rivère de Carles, David Schalkwyk, James Schiffer,
Bruce R. Smith, Goran V. Stanivuković, Jennifer C. Vaught.
James Schiffer is Professor of English and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts
and Sciences at the State University of New York, New Paltz.
Shakespeare Criticism
Philip C. Kolin, General Editor
Romeo and Juliet The Tempest
Critical Essays Critical Essays
Edited by John F. Andrews Edited by Patrick M. Murphy
Coriolanus Pericles
Critical Essays Critical Essays
Edited by David Wheeler Edited by David Skeele
Titus Andronicus The Taming of the Shrew
Critical Essays Critical Essays
Edited by Philip C. Kolin Edited by Dana E. Aspinall
Love’s Labour’s Lost The Merchant of Venice
Critical Essays New Critical Essays
Edited by Felicia Hardison Londré Edited by John W. Mahon and
Ellen Macleod Mahon
The Winter’s Tale
Critical Essays Hamlet
Edited by Maurice Hunt New Critical Essays
Edited by Arthur F. Kinney
Two Gentlemen of Verona
Critical Essays Othello
Edited by June Schlueter New Critical Essays
Edited by Philip C. Kolin
Venus and Adonis
Critical Essays Julius Caesar
Edited by Philip C. Kolin New Critical Essays
Edited by Horst Zander
As You Like It: from 1600 to the Present
Critical Essays Antony and Cleopatra
Edited by Edward Tomarken New Critical Essays
Edited by Sara M. Deats
The Comedy of Errors
Critical Essays All’s Well, That Ends Well
Edited by Robert S. Miola New Critical Essays
Edited by Gary Waller
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Critical Essays Macbeth
Edited by Dorothea Kehler New Critical Essays
Edited by Nick Moschovakis
Shakespeare’s Sonnets
Critical Essays King Lear
Edited by James Schiffer New Critical Essays
Edited by Jeffrey Kahan
Henry VI
Critical Essays Twelfth Night
Edited by Thomas A. Pendleton New Critical Essays
Edited by James Schiffer
Twelfth Night
New Critical Essays
Edited by James Schiffer
Shakespeare Criticism Volume 34
First published 2011
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
2 70 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2011 James Schiffer for selection and editorial matter;
individual contributions, the contributors
The right of James Schiffer to be identifi ed as the author of the editorial material, and of the
authors for their individual chapters has been asserted, in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Typeset in Times New Roman by
The Running Head Limited, Cambridge, www.therunninghead.com
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Rowe, Chippenham, Wiltshire
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Twelfth night: new critical essays / edited by James Schiffer. — 1st ed.
p. cm. — (Shakespeare criticism)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616. Twelfth night. I. Schiffer, James.
PR2837.T95 2011
822.3'3—dc22
2010030386
ISBN: 978–0–415–97335–9 (hbk)
For Pamela

Contents
List of fi gures ix
Acknowledgments xi
N otes on contributors xiii
General Editor’s introduction xvii
1 Introduction Taking the long view: Twelfth Night criticism and
performance 1
JAMES SCHIFFER
2 Twelfth Night: editing puzzles and eunuchs of all kinds 45
PATRICIA PARKER
3 “His fancy’s queen”: sensing sexual strangeness in Twelfth Night 65
BRUCE R. SMITH
4 Music, food, and love in the affective landscapes of Twelfth Night 81
DAVID SCHALKWYK
5 “The marriage of true minds”: amity, twinning, and comic closure
in Twelfth Night 99
LAURIE E. OSBORNE
6 Masculine plots in Twelfth Night 114
GORAN V. STANIVUKOVIĆ
7 Post-c ommunist nights: Shakespeare, essential masculinity, and
Western citizenship 131
MARCELA KOSTIHOVÁ
8 Beyond the “lyric” in Illyricum: some early modern backgrounds
to Twelfth Night 149
ELIZABETH PENTLAND
viii C ontents
9 Domesticating strangeness in Twelfth Night 167
CATHERINE LISAK
10 Staging the exotic in Twelfth Night 184
NATHALIE RIVÈRE DE CARLES
11 “The text remains for another attempt”: Twelfth Night, or
W hat You Will on the German stage 201
CHRISTA JANSOHN
12 “What he wills”: early modern rings and vows in Twelfth Night 217
ALAN W. POWERS
13 Madness and social mobility in Twelfth Night 229
IVO KAMPS
14 Twelfth Night and the New Orleans Twelfth Night Revelers 244
JENNIFER C. VAUGHT
15 Whodunit? Plot, plotting, and detection in Twelfth Night 258
CYNTHIA LEWIS
Index 273
Figures
3.1 Tapestry valence for a bed, English, Sheldon workshops, 1590–
1620. © V&A Images, Victoria and Albert Museum, London. 72
3.2 Embroidered jacket, English, 1610–20, Burrell Collection,
Glasgow. Reproduced by permission of Culture and Sport
Glasgow. 77
7.1 Olivia and Sebastian, Twelfth Night, director: Enikő Ezsenyi,
2002. Courtesy of Hana Smejkalová, photographer. 139
7.2 Antonio and Cesario, Twelfth Night, director: Enikő Ezsenyi,
2002. Courtesy of Hana Smejkalová, photographer. 140
7.3 Antonio and Sebastian, Twelfth Night, director: Viktor Polesný,
2005. Courtesy of Agentura Schok. 142
7.4 Cesario and Olivia, Twelfth Night, director: Viktor Polesný,
2005. Courtesy of Ivo Mičkal, photographer. 143
7.5 Backdrop for Polesný’s Twelfth Night, stage designer: Petr
Matásek. Photographed by author with permission of Agentura
Schok. 144
8.1 “Pannoniae, et Illyrici Veteris Tabula,” map from Parergon, in
Abraham Ortelius’s Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, Antwerp, 1595 (by
permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California). 150
8.2 “Illyricum,” map from Abraham Ortelius’s Theatrum Orbis
Terrarum, Antwerp, 1595: following 92 (by permission of The
Huntington Library, San Marino, California). 151
8.3 “Merchant of Raguse” from Nicolas Nicolay’s Navigations,
Peregrinations and Voyages, London, 1585: 137 (by permission of
The Huntington Library, San Marino, California). 156
10.1 La dodicesima notte, o quel che volete, director: Antonio Latella,
Théâtre municipal, Avignon 2004. Photograph: Hervé Bellamy. 189
10.2 Dmitry Dyuzhev as Aguecheek, Sergey Mukhin as Sebastian,
Alexander Feklistov as Sir Toby, Igor Yasuovich as Feste and,
in the background, Alexey Dadanov as Olivia. Cheek by Jowl,
Barbican, London, 2006. The fi ght between Sebastian and
Aguecheek, Act 5. Photograph: Keith Pattison. Copyright
Cheek by Jowl. 191