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With its hectic pace, intriguing characters, festivity, and trickery, Twelfth Night remains a favorite of audiences and critics alike. In fact, author and critic Harold Bloom writes in Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, ''I would have to admit that Twelfth Night is surely the greatest of all Shakespeare's pure comedies.'' Bloom finds that the structure of the play, although apparently spontaneous, is highly organized to reflect the craziness of the characters. He explains, ''The play is decentered; there is almost no significant action, perhaps because nearly everyone behaves involuntarily.'' Much of the humor of the play arises from the characters's impulsive decisions regarding love.

The themes of celebration and festivity were central to the sources that inspired Shakespeare in writing this play. The incorporation of the Twelfth Night holiday was probably suggested by the Italian play Gl'Ingannati, which contained a reference to La Notte di Beffania, the Epiphany. However, recent criticism has reached past the surface gaiety suggested by the title and delved into the themes behind the temporary release of a celebration. Thad Jenkins Logan of Studies in English Literature, 1500 to 1900 reveals darker undercurrents of the festivities of the play.He writes, ''As its title suggests, theworld of this play is a night world, and festivity here has lost its innocence.'' Logan reminds the reader that the celebration in the play appeals to pleasure and shaking off restraints, and he even characterizes the people of Illyria as ''parasitical pleasure-seekers.'' He suggests that the message of the play is a cautionary one: ''In Twelfth Night Shakespeare leads us to explore the possibility that our drives to pleasure are ultimately irreconcilable with social and moral norms of goodness.'' Within this world of revelry, there are two characters, Malvolio and Feste, who serve as counter-balances to the other characters's pursuits. Logan explains that as the play unfolds, the audience sees the need for the conscientiousness that Malvolio offers. He explains, ''The play itself has discovered . . . the dangers of life without the principle of order that Malvolio stands for--'' As for Feste, Logan writes:

There is within the play world one character who provides an ironic commentary on revelry, who seems to know that the pursuit of pleasure can be destructive, and who leads the audience toward a recognition of the emptiness of festive excess. Paradoxically, this is Feste the jester, whose name and office closely associate him with the festive experience.

Many critics have identified the problem of identity as a major issue in Twelfth Night and correlate the self-deception and disguises that are prevalent in the play with this theme. In an article for Modern Language Quarterly on the subject of identity problems in Twelfth Night, J. Dennis Huston maintains that identity is an ongoing concern in Shakespeare's work and is manifest in Viola in this particular play. He writes that as she washes up on shore, ''Behind her is the sea of lost identity, which has washed away the foundations of her previous existence. Gone is her childhood tie to family, for her father is dead, her mother never to be heard of, and her brother apparently drowned.'' Huston adds that Viola is separated from her hometown and must make her own way in the world. Her decisions lead to confusion about her own identity, and especially with her sexual identity, thus complicating her situation. But Viola must be appreciated as more than an angst-ridden young woman in search of her true self. Bloom finds her mysterious and enigmatic and remarks, ''The largest puzzle of the charming Viola is her extraordinary passivity, which doubtless helps explain her falling in love with Orsino.''

The use of language contributes to the sense of comedic festivity: much of the humor in the play centers on wordplay or choice of language. In Shakespeare's Comedies: Explorations in Form, Ralph Berry emphasizes the central role of communication in Twelfth Night, explaining, ''The burden of the theme of fantasy and reality is entrusted to a particular device: the message. The action of Twelfth Night is in great part the business, literal and symbolic, of communication.'' He notes that the play begins with the message of Olivia's vow to mourn her brother for seven years. He lists other important messages, such as the false message from Olivia to Malvolio as well as Malvolio's letter. Because almost all messages are misleading, Berry comments that ''the comic business develops the serious concern of Twelfth Night, the fallibility of human communication.'' In an article for Shakespeare Survey: An Annual Survey of Shakespearean Study and Production, Elizabeth M. Yearling asserts that ''often in Twelfth Night [Shakespeare] shows words to be frivolous, conventional, or false.'' She ultimately concludes, ''Character and theme emerge from the nature of the words and the way they are combined.'' Yearling gives as examples words used ''as mere decoration'' by characters such as Sir Andrew, and ''the language of compliment'' that comes so naturally to the upper class, enabling them to seem polite when their intentions are altogether different. She pays special attention to Viola's way of speaking, noting, ''Much of Viola's language, especially to Olivia, is affected, courtly, artificial, not the style we expect of a Shakespearian heroine. But Shakespeare exploits this conventional speech brilliantly.''

Malvolio has intrigued critics for centuries. In the seventeenth century, Charles I was so taken by Malvolio'smistreatment that he changed the name of the play in the Second Folio to Malvolio. Critics in the nineteenth century argued whether Malvolio was a Puritan, or whether he represented the emerging bourgeoisie class, questions that are still being debated today. David Willbern of Shakespeare Quarterly describes Malvolio as a ''humorless steward, sick of merrymakers and self-love, [who] seems almost a stranger to the festive world of Illyria . . . .Everything about Malvolio's character sets him apart from frivolity.'' Bloom interprets Malvolio as a stage version of Shakespeare's rival Ben Jonson. He elaborates, writing that Malvolio ''is wickedly funny and is a sublime satire upon the moralizing Ben Jonson.''

But there is a darker purpose in Malvolio's presence in the play. In the University of Kansas City Review, critic Melvin Seiden suggests that Malvolio's function in the play is as a scapegoat for the antics of the other characters. Seiden writes that Malvolio is in the play ''so that Shakespeare's lovers may preserve their status free from the nothing-if-not-critical comic scrutiny which would otherwise expose their romantic pretensions to the withering winds of laughter.'' Seiden goes on to explain thatMalvolio ''is the scapegoat; he is the man who undergoes a sacrificial comic death so that they may live unscathed.'' Willbern acknowledges the gravity of Malvolio's sacrifice when he notes that the ''underlying seriousness of Malvolio's fall is further suggested by the nature of the punishment he suffers . . . .Malvolio is not only mortified; metaphorically he is also mortally assaulted, killed, and buried.'' According to Seiden, Malvolio's role in the drama is absolutely critical to the success of the play. He maintains that ''without Malvolio the comedy of Twelfth Night would be impoverished; I would go farther and argue that without him the comedy, the play as a whole, would not work.'' Willbern comments on the complexity of Malvolio's character as a man fundamentally divided. He notes, ''Up to the moment of his fall, Malvolio had been able to keep his overt behavior and his covert desires neatly separate.'' Even at the end, Malvolio believes he is keeping up appearances, as Willbern explains, ''But Malvolio's careful division between act and desire, reason and fantasy, collapses when he falls into Maria's trap, even though he himself is certain he has maintained it yet.''

According to Bloom, ''Malvolio is, with Feste, Shakespeare's great creation'' in the play.Willbern goes so far as to callMalvolio and Feste ''symbolic brothers.'' In fact, many critics pair these men as the two characters going against the current in Illyria. Feste is considered by many critics to be the best of Shakespeare's fools. Bloom applauds the character, declaring, ''The genius of Twelfth Night is Feste, the most charming of all Shakespeare's fools, and the only sane character in a wild play.'' According to Alan S. Downer in College English, ''Feste is disguised both in costume and in behavior . . . .His disguise, like Viola's, is a kind of protection; he is an allowed fool and may speak frankly what other men, in other disguises, must say only to themselves.'' Feste also plays an important role for the audience; Downer remarks that Feste's function is ''to make plain to the audience the artificial, foolish attitudes of the principal figures.''Commenting on Feste's pivotal role in the play, Downer points to the moment when Feste drives Sebastian and Olivia together.He writes, ''It is Feste's only direct contribution to the action of the play; it is also the single decisive action which cuts the comic knot; and it is a visual dramatic symbol of his relationship to the whole play.'' ELH's Joan Hartwig adds another dimension of meaning in interpreting Feste's function in the play. According to Hartwig:

Feste's manipulation of Malvolio resembles the playwright's manipulation of his audience's will, but in such a reduced way that we cannot avoid seeing the difference between merely human revenge and the larger benevolence that control's the play's design.

References:

Berry, Ralph, ''The Messages of Twelfth Night,'' in Shakespeare's Comedies: Explorations in Form, Princeton University Press, 1972, pp. 196-212.

Bloom, Harold, ''Twelfth Night,'' in Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, Riverhead Books, 1998, pp. 226-46.

Downer, Alan S., ''Feste's Night,'' in College English, Vol. 13, No. 5, February 1952, pp. 258-65.

Granville-Barker, Harley, ''Preface to Twelfth Night,'' in Prefaces to Shakespeare, Vol. 6, B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1974, pp. 26-32.

Hartwig, Joan, ''Feste's 'Whirligig of Time' and the Comic Providence of Twelfth Night,'' in ELH, Vol. 40, No. 4, Winter 1973, pp. 501-13.

Huston, J. Dennis, ''When I Came to Man's Estate: Twelfth Night and Problems of Identity,'' in Modern Language Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 3, September 1972, pp. 274-88.

Logan, Thad Jenkins, ''Twelfth Night: The Limits of Festivity,'' in Studies in English Literature, 1500 to 1900, Vol. 22, No. 2, Spring 1982, pp. 223-38.

Seiden, Melvin, ''Malvolio Reconsidered,'' in University of Kansas City Review, Vol. 28, No. 2, December 1961, pp. 105-14.

Shakespeare, William, Twelfth Night, 2nd Series, edited by J. M. Lothian and T. W. Craik, Arden Shakespeare, 1975.

Willbern, David, ''Malvolio's Fall,'' in Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 1, Winter 1978, pp. 85-90.

Yearling, Elizabeth M., ''Language, Theme, and Character in Twelfth Night,'' in Shakespeare Survey: An Annual Survey of Shakespearean Study and Production, Vol. 35, 1982, pp. 79-86.

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