Melancholy Within Mirth in Twelfth Night
- Janet Appleby
- Mar 4
- 5 min read
The following is an excerpt from our Twelfth Night Study Companion, available on the resources page of our website.
Shakespearean comedies typically involve entertaining plots of misunderstanding and disorder. However, Twelfth Night is a more subdued comedy with an underlying sense of loss and sadness. Alongside the frivolity and foolishness of the play, Shakespeare invites audiences to consider the persistent presence of melancholy throughout life. While in Elizabethan times melancholy was generally considered to be the sadness that accompanies unrequited or lost love, it can be more broadly understood as any form of grief, loss or suffering. The grief of Olivia, Viola and Sebastian opens the play, and many of the characters must navigate their way through personal suffering. By crafting a plot that has potential to become tragedy with each new twist, Shakespeare draws attention to the importance of appreciating the moments in life that bring joy, while living with ongoing grief and loss.
By opening the play with grieving characters, Shakespeare is able to examine how people respond to experiences of loss. Olivia is first introduced to the audience through Valentine, who creates a vivid image of her all-consuming grief. After the death of her brother, Olivia has removed herself from society, particularly from men, for seven years, determined to stay in her state of grief. Everyone seems to know of her grief, and her vow to live a nun-like life, “seasoning” or preserving her grief with copious tears; however, her desire to keep her brother’s memory “fresh and lasting”, implies her grief is genuine, if ostentatious. Olivia’s grief is perhaps not as great as she imagines as it is easily surmounted by her attraction to Cesario, who soon consumes her emotional energy. Through this, Shakespeare suggests that an extended commitment to grief is unrealistic and that life should continue to be lived despite grief. It also evokes the idea that love is a way that people recover from loss.
Similarly, Viola is also mourning her brother, and it is this loss that is the catalyst for the disguise that drives the plot. The loss of Sebastian has left Viola alone and vulnerable in a strange land where she must not “be delivered to the world”, or have her identity known, until she knows more about her brother’s plight. Her circumstances leave her unable to indulge in mourning like Olivia can, so Viola responds by establishing a path to ensure her survival, using her disguise to contain her grief and proceed safely in the world. Comparatively, Sebastian is also trying to live with the assumed loss of Viola. He is introduced to the audience with compelling masculine imagery in the captain’s description of him bravely riding the waves after the shipwreck like the god “Arion on a dolphin’s back”. However, when Sebastian first appears in Act 2, he confesses that he “drown[s]” in grief and he describes his crying as “near the manners of my mother”, implying that grief is making him act like a woman. For Sebastian, loss has him acting out of character and overwhelmed by emotion. With such concentrated experiences of grief throughout the opening acts, Shakespeare enables his audience to observe the complexities of living with grief.
Shakespeare also demonstrates that suffering often accompanies love. While Orsino’s performative melancholy is exaggerated and seems insincere, it sets a contrast for the more genuine suffering of others. Viola finds herself in an impossible position of doing her duty as Orsino’s page and wooing Olivia, while also being in love with Orsino, describing it as “barful strife”, a task full of obstacles. In her ‘ring’ soliloquy after realising Olivia loves her, Viola describes herself as a “poor monster”, implying she is unlovable, and one who is “desperate” for Orsino’s love. Viola’s suffering is best reflected in her discussion with Orsino where she uses the guise of a “sister” who keeps her love hidden. Viola uses the image of a monument on a grave to convey the eternal and silent suffering of a woman who hides her feelings by “smiling at grief”, implying that Viola is likely to continue to suffer in this way as long as her identity remains hidden. Olivia too suffers from her sudden love for Cesario and not knowing if it will be reciprocated. Maria observes that since Cesario’s visit, Olivia is “much out of quiet”, or out of sorts, and Olivia seeks out the company of Malvolio because his somber mood matches her own. She later compares her state of mind to Malvolio believing herself to be “as mad as he”. Though love is the desired outcome for the characters in the play, Shakespeare presents a reality that love unspoken or unresolved can often come with great anguish.
Shakespeare continually reminds the audience of the presence of melancholy with a plot that at any moment could turn to tragedy and an ending that leaves some emotional wounds unresolved. The pervading sense that darker consequences are only a moment away are implied throughout Viola’s storyline. The shipwreck itself presents danger for Viola, and she must use her wits to survive by creating a new identity to “conceal” who she is. More significantly, Orsino’s question whether “died thy sister of her love”, suggests that Viola’s secret love for Orsino may eventually destroy her if it remains concealed. Two other moments present a similar potential for tragedy: when challenged to duel by Sir Andrew, Viola is presented with a real threat to her life where all she can do is “pray God defend” her, and when Orsino believes that Cesario has betrayed him, he quickly threatens to “sacrifice” Cesario out of jealousy. At each point, Shakespeare steers the plot away from tragic outcomes in these instances with comically timed interruptions; however, he also leaves a lingering sense that any stability in life is tenuous.
It is Malvolio’s story that offers the most darkness to the plot and shows how quickly fun and foolery can turn to manipulation. The treatment of Malvolio becomes cruelty when his foes trap him in “hideous darkness” while trying to convince him that he is mad. Malvolio’s storyline remains unresolved, when he exits the play feeling bitterly betrayed and vehemently declaring he “will be revenged”, Shakespeare keeps open the possibility that Malvolio will seek his own justice. Though the events of the play never culminate in disaster, the audience is persistently reminded of its possibility. Thus, Shakespeare teeters on the edge of tragedy to enhance the emotional depths of the play and perhaps as a reminder of the fragility of happiness.
Shakespeare ends Twelfth Night with true identities revealed and the expected marriages of the lovers and in doing so, he lifts the confusion and anguish of unresolved attraction. However, the melancholy of the text remains in Feste’s closing song which affirms that life’s celebrations, and the “golden time” for marriage that Orsino references, are short-lived moments within the toil of life. Feste uses rain as a symbol of hardship, and he describes that with every stage of life “the rain it raineth every day”. Thus, Shakespeare dampens the play’s happy ending by acknowledging that the difficulties the characters have faced in their lives so far will not end with marriage, but will continue through life, as has been the way since “the world begun.” Twelfth Night, therefore, is an unsentimental romantic comedy that presents love and frivolity as momentary pleasures amongst the challenges and trials of life.
We have lots more to say about this text! If you’d like for Ben to speak to your students or to your teaching team, please contact hello@englishlab.com.au
Please also look around our website for further resources and services that can help your Year Twelve teachers and students get the best out of themselves. Our study guide (of which this post is an excerpt from) is available by clicking on the ‘Resources’ tab at the top of this page.
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