"Twelfth Night" by William Shakespeare: Rescued from a deadly shipwreck at sea, Viola is devastated to learn her twin brother Sebastian may not have been so lucky. No one can speak for his whereabouts. Presuming the worst, and with no other family in the world, Viola is left alone in a strange land. She hears of a Countess Olivia, who is mourning the tragic loss of her own brother. Feeling an affinity for the woeful woman, Viola pledges to serve Olivia, but she is told the Countess refuses to see anyone. With no other options at her disposal, Viola elects to disguise herself as a boy and seek employment in the court of Orsino, the Duke of Illyria.
It just so happens that Orsino is madly in love with Olivia. Sadly, the feeling is unrequited. Even the Duke's adoring devotion isn't enough to crack the depths of his lady's despair. She refuses to see him under any circumstances. Orsino won't give up so easily. He decides to send one of his servants to plead his case for him. He elects his favorite new lad, Cesario, for the mission, not knowing that Cesario is actually Viola in disguise. Things are further complicated by Viola being in love with the Duke. She fell in love with him at first sight, but her pretending to be a boy leaves her unable to declare her love. It's with a heavy heart that she accepts her assignment.
At first, Olivia refuses to see Viola, not wanting to encourage the Duke's affection. But one glimpse of the errand "boy" changes all that. Instantly infatuated with Viola, Olivia invents false pretenses to see him/her again, stating she wants Cesario/Viola to return with news of how his/her master takes her refusal, even sending a ring after him/her as a token of her love. So not only has Viola's cross-dressing prevented her from following her heart, it has also stolen the heart of the woman her love loves. And please don't ask me to explain that again, because I fear this is getting dangerously close to an "Abbott and Costello" routine.
The bizarre love triangle gets a few more sides, becoming more of a love trapezoid, when other members of Olivia's house get involved. Her uncle, Sir Toby, is trying to set her up with his friend Sir Andrew, a buffoonish lout whose company Olivia can barely tolerate. Then there's Malvolio, Olivia's snobbish, puritanical steward who secretly carries a torch for her. When Malvolio insults Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Olivia's maid Maria, the slighted trio schemes to humiliate him, planting a fake love letter to trick their prey into thinking the Countess is in love with him. That's just cruel. Nothing hurts more than imagined love. Well, except for actual real love.
Just when it seems things couldn't get more complicated, along comes Viola's brother Sebastian, who managed to survive the shipwreck thanks to the efforts of a sailor named Antonio. And Antonio is a sailor much in the same way the guys in the Village People were police officers and construction workers. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But Sebastian's arrival throws everything into chaos, with all parties involved confusing him for Cesario/Viola. Mistaken identity is always a proven recipe for comedy. You should see how funny it is when people confuse me with someone who gives a damn.
One of the best things about reading Shakespeare is discovering the origins of classic quotations. "Twelfth Night" contains two significant contributions to the modern lexicon. The first occurs in the opening line of the play, as Orsino, pining for Olivia, utters the famous command, "If music be the food of love, play on."
But the true highlight occurs later when Malvolio is reading the fake love letter he believes to be written by Olivia, but that is in truth written by Maria. In trying to convince the lowly steward he shouldn't be afraid to love someone above his class, Maria pens the following memorable lines...
"In my stars I am above thee; but be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some
achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."
(Act II, scene V)
I guess since Winston Churchill made the lines immortal, I always thought they came from a political play like "King Lear or "Richard III" or something similar. I didn't anticipate encountering them in a comedic piece like "Twelfth Night," and I certainly didn't expect they'd be written by such a secondary character as Maria. That Shakespeare guy was full of surprises.
So exactly what was Shakespeare trying to say with "Twelfth Night"? Was it just a comedic farce of mistaken identity? Or was it an exploration of Elizabethan sexuality? See, this is why the authorship question is so important. Edward de Vere, the true author of the plays, was homosexual, or at least bisexual, but this was a good 400 years before the notion of gay pride, so writing plays with openly-gay characters would have been a risky proposition. Instead, de Vere used cross-dressing to blur the line between genders and hint at the idea of homosexual love. It's a device he uses in numerous plays, including the "The Merchant of Venice" and "The Two Gentlemen of Verona." Knowing de Vere's sexuality also gives more insight into works like "The Taming of the Shrew," where marriage is seen as little more than a financial partnership, hinting at the nature of de Vere's own marriages.
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If you'd like to learn more about Edward de Vere and the truth about Shakespeare, here are a few links to get you started...
Shakespeare Oxford Society Home Page
The Shakespeare Authorship Studies Conference: Who Was Edward de Vere?