Twelfth Night

First performed around 1601–1602 and published in the First Folio of 1623, William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is a comedy of mistaken identity, unrequited desire and the fragile boundaries between appearance and reality. After a shipwreck separates her from her twin brother Sebastian, Viola arrives in Illyria and disguises herself as a young man, Cesario, entering the service of Duke Orsino, who longs for the Countess Olivia. When Orsino sends Cesario to plead his suit, Olivia falls instead for the messenger, setting in motion a delicate tangle of affections, disguises and misunderstandings. Meanwhile, Olivia’s household becomes the stage for a parallel comedy of mischief, in which the sharp-witted Maria, the irrepressible Sir Toby Belch and the self-important Malvolio expose the vanity and absurdity of social pretension.

Among Shakespeare’s finest comedies, Twelfth Night balances exuberant farce with an unmistakable undertow of melancholy. Its exploration of gender, desire, self-invention and the uncertainties of love has made it particularly resonant for modern audiences, while Feste the fool’s songs and observations lend the play a quiet, philosophical depth. The imagined world of Illyria becomes a place where identities can be tried on, conventions briefly overturned and longing allowed to escape the limits of reason. Written at the height of Shakespeare’s theatrical powers, the play remains a graceful meditation on the pleasures and costs of illusion, and on the curious distance between the happiness we pursue and the lives we actually inhabit.

From the book

“I can no other answer make but thanks,

And thanks, and ever thanks.”

— William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

On Twelfth Night

“By turns lyrical, sad, and ridiculous, love in Twelfth Night shares something of the elusiveness which characterizes the play’s cross-dressed protagonist.”

— Catherine Belsey, Folger Shakespeare Library