Twelfth Night

by James Schiffer (Editor)

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 reception and performance history, while individual essays explore a variety of topics relevant to a full appreciation of the early modern notions of love, friendship, sexuality, madness, festive ritual, exoticism, social mobility, and detection. The contributors approach these topics from a variety of perspectives, 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 figures in the field explore and extend the key debates surrounding Twelfth Night , creating the ideal book for readers approaching this text for the first time or wishing to further their knowledge of this stimulating, much loved play.

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 2009

Reviews

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Schiffer's introduction is all-embracing, thorough and learned; and the essays are often ground-breaking, like Ivo Kamps'. It is an honor for me to be included in this collection with my quasi-materialist essay on "Rings and vows in TN." Renaissance engagement rings did not differ from marriage rings, which often had a helmet or family crest on them. Diamonds didn't occur in rings until, roughly, DeBeers' monopoly.
In my essay I remark that there's only one American in Shakespeare: Malvolio. (One could also make a fair argument for Othello's "American" motivations.) For wanting to marry the boss's daughter, or in fact the boss herself, he is treated as mad--put in a dark cage, questioned on theology (instead of questions on the meaning of "the rolling stone gathers no moss"--see One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) by the psychiatrist preachers of the day, etc. The Clown/Preacher/Psychologist questions Malvolio on Pythagoras's idea of the Transmigration of the Soul(!--tougher than mere proverbs). Malvolio says he no way, as a Christian, approves this (Hindu?) belief. The Clown-Psychologist says M must stay in the dark crazyhouse until he agrees with Pythagoras, and "fear to kill a woodcock lest thou dispossess te soul of ty grandam."
Malvolio's American idea to marry his boss-lady waited two centuries and a revolution to be accepted. And now this American cavalier-ness with social class may be endangered, as we develop our own aristocracy of hard cash, billionaires with tax havens.
Well, looks like I have not reviewed the book, but I have written an ad for my own piece. Was it ever thus. Guess you'll have to check out the book yourself, and see what I am too self-centered to convey.

[University of Chicago Magazine]

James Schiffer, AM’74, PhD’80
Editor

From our pages (Mar–Apr/11): "This collection examines Shakespeare’s classic comedy about mistaken identity through several critical lenses, exploring themes of sexuality, madness, and social mobility. Schiffer’s introduction includes a history of the play’s performances and critical reception."