From The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors, ed. Charles Wells Moulton, 8 vols. (London: Moulton Publishing, 1901), 1: 498-99.
TWELFTH NIGHT
1601
At our feast wee had a play called "Twelue Night, or What you Will," much like the Commedy of Errores, or Menechmi in Plautus, but most like and neere to that in Italian called Inganni. A good practice in it to make the Steward beleeve his Lady widdowe was in love with him, by counterfeyting a letter as from his Lady in generall termes, telling him what shee liked best in him, and prescribing his gesture in smiling, his apparaile, &c., and then when he came to practice making him beleeue they tooke him to be mad. -- MANNINGHAM, JOHN, 1601, Diary, Feb. 2, ed. Bruce, p. 18.
January 6. -- After dinner to the Duke's house, and there saw "Twelfth-Night" acted well, though it be but a silly play, and not related at all to the name or days. -- PEPYS, SAMUEL, 1663, Diary and Correspondence.
This is justly considered as one of the most delightful of Shakspear's comedies. It is full of sweetness and pleasantry. It is perhaps too good-natured for comedy. It has little satire, and no spleen. It aimed 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. -- HAZLITT, WILLIAM, 1817-69, Characters of Shakspear's Plays, p. 180.
We may walk into that stately hall and think, -- Here Shakspere's "Twelfth Night" was acted in the Christmas of 1601; and here its exquisite poetry first fell upon the ear of some secluded scholar, and was to him as a fragrant flower blooming amidst the arid sands of his Bracton and his Fleta; and here its gentle satire upon the vain and the foolish penetrated into the natural heart of some grave and formal dispenser of justice, and made him look with tolerance, if not with sympathy upon the mistakes of less grave and formal fellow-men, and here its ever-gushing spirit of enjoyment, -- of fun without malice, of wit without grossness, of humour without extravagance, -- taught the swaggering, roaring, overgrown boy, miscalled student, that there were higher sources of mirth than affrays in Fleet Street, or drunkenness in Whitefriars. Venerable Hall of the Middle Temple, thou art to our eyes more stately and more to be admired since we looked upon that entry in the Table-book of John Manningham! The Globe has perished, and so has the Blackfriars. The works of the poet who made the names of these frail buildings immortal need no associations to recommend them; but it is yet pleasant to know that there is one locality remaining where a play of Shakspere was listened to by his contemporaries; and that play, "Twelfth Night." -- KNIGHT, CHARLES, 1849 Studies of Shakspere, bk. vii, ch. ii, p. 311.
Is the purest and merriest comedy which Shakespeare has written. ... And the piece in truth is constituted throughout to make a strong impression of the maddest mirth. Rightly conceived and acted by players who even in caricature do not miss the line of beauty, it has an incredible effect. -- GERVINUS, G. G., 1849-62, Shakespeare Commentaries, tr. Bunnett. p. 439.
The love of Viola is the sweetest and tenderest emotion that ever informed the heart of the purest and the most graceful of beings, with a spirit almost divine. Perhaps in the whole range of Shakespeare's poetry there is nothing which comes more unbidden into the mind, and always in connexion with some image of the ethereal beauty of the utterer, than Viola's celebrated speech to the Duke in her assumed garb of the page. -- CLARKE, CHARLES COWDEN, 1863, Shakespeare-Characters, p. 196.
Of all Shakespeare's Comedies, perhaps "Twelfth Night" is the most richly woven with various hues of love, serious and mock-heroic. The amorous threads take warmer shifting colours from their neighbourhood to the unmitigated remorseless merry-making of the harum-scarum old wag Sir Toby and his sparkling captain in mischief, the "most excellent devil of wit," Maria. Beside their loud conviviality and pitiless fun the languishing sentiment of the cultivated love-lore Duke stands out seven times refined, and goes with exquisite touch to the innermost sensibilities. -- MINTO, WILLIAM, 1874-85, Characteristics of English Poets, p. 298.
"Twelfth Night" is perhaps the most graceful and harmonious comedy Shakespeare ever wrote. It is certainly that in which all the notes the poet strikes, the note of seriousness and of raillery, of passion, of tenderness, and of laughter, blend in the richest and fullest concord. It is like a symphony in which no strain can be dispensed with, or like a picture veiled in a golden haze, into which all the colours resolve themselves. The play does not overflow with wit and gaiety like its predecessor; we feel that Shakespeare's joy of life has culminated and is about to pass over into melancholy; but there is far more unity in it than in "As You Like It," and it is a great deal more dramatic. -- BRANDES, GEORGE, 1898, William Shakespeare, A Critical Study, vol. I, p. 273.
Get your own Free Home Page