Twelfth Night
“There are only three industries in this Shakespeare’s comedy: making love, making songs and making feasts and they make them all to perfection” (Thorndike). Twelfth Night is the happiest comedy of Shakespeare. This highest achievement of the Bard of Avon has always been admired by both critics and audiences.
The fact is that Twelfth Night or Epiphany is a festival of mirth and joy celebrated after twelve days of Christmas. The alternative title of the play “What You Will”.
The play is the most delightful comedy of Shakespeare.
Hazlitt aptly remarks about Twelfth Niight: "It is perhaps too good-natured for comedy. It has little satire and no spleen. It aims at the ludicrous rather than the ridiculous. It makes us laugh at the follies of mankind not despise them and still less bear any ill will towards them." The love of Viola is the sweetest and purest kind of love as seen in her following lines spoken to Duke Orsino.
Duke. And what ’s her history?
Vio. A blank, my lord. She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief.
“She never told her love” What an excellent poetic utterance! The lines reveal the ethereal beauty of Viola’s love. In the whole range of Shakespeare’s poetry, we won’t find such peaks of poetry, such lines charged with divine inspiration. These lines show the inward and spiritual modesty of Viola. “The great charm of her character lies in moral rectitude so perfect and so sure as to be a secret into itself” (Hudson).
The fact is that Twelfth Night or Epiphany is a festival of mirth and joy celebrated after twelve days of Christmas. The alternative title of the play “What You Will”.
The play is the most delightful comedy of Shakespeare.
Hazlitt aptly remarks about Twelfth Niight: "It is perhaps too good-natured for comedy. It has little satire and no spleen. It aims at the ludicrous rather than the ridiculous. It makes us laugh at the follies of mankind not despise them and still less bear any ill will towards them." The love of Viola is the sweetest and purest kind of love as seen in her following lines spoken to Duke Orsino.
Duke. And what ’s her history?
Vio. A blank, my lord. She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief.
“She never told her love” What an excellent poetic utterance! The lines reveal the ethereal beauty of Viola’s love. In the whole range of Shakespeare’s poetry, we won’t find such peaks of poetry, such lines charged with divine inspiration. These lines show the inward and spiritual modesty of Viola. “The great charm of her character lies in moral rectitude so perfect and so sure as to be a secret into itself” (Hudson).
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Faith in the Almighty Lord creates love, peace, brotherhood, inner joy, patience, humbleness, righteousness, kindness, and self-restraint.These good qualities alone can protect our world "where ignorant armies clash by night".