Twelfth Night Summary: Shakespeare's Comedy of Shipwreck, Disguise and Mistaken Love
What Twelfth Night is about
Twelfth Night, or What You Will is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare, thought to have been written around 1601 to 1602 as entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. The first documented public performance was on 2 February 1602, at Candlemas, the formal end of the Christmastide and Epiphanytide season in the Christian liturgical calendar. The play itself was not printed until it appeared in the First Folio of 1623.
The story begins with a shipwreck off the coast of Illyria, a coastal land of Shakespeare's own invention. A young woman named Viola comes ashore with the help of a captain. Her twin brother Sebastian is missing and she believes he has drowned. With the captain's aid she disguises herself as a young man called Cesario and takes service with Duke Orsino.
Orsino has convinced himself that he is in love with the Countess Olivia. Olivia is in mourning and has vowed to refuse entertainments, the company of men, and any offer of love or marriage for seven years. Orsino sends Cesario to plead his case. Olivia, meeting the handsome young messenger, falls in love with Cesario instead. Viola, for her part, has fallen in love with Orsino. The triangle is complete and impossible: Viola loves Orsino, Orsino loves Olivia, Olivia loves a young man who does not exist.
Running alongside this is one of Shakespeare's most famous comic subplots. Olivia's pompous steward, Malvolio, is tricked into believing his mistress is secretly in love with him. What begins as a prank gathers a darker weight as it goes on.
The main characters
Viola is the engine of the play. Shipwrecked, grieving and alone, she invents Cesario as a means of survival and then finds the disguise trapping her in a love she cannot declare.
Duke Orsino is in love with the idea of being in love. He spends the play pining for a woman who will not see him, while confiding in the servant who adores him.
Countess Olivia has sworn off the world for seven years of mourning, then abandons that vow at speed when Cesario walks through her gate. Her sudden passion sets her at odds with her own professed duty.
Sebastian, Viola's twin, has been rescued by Antonio, a sea captain who once fought against Orsino and who comes to Illyria anyway, at real risk to himself, out of admiration for Sebastian.
Malvolio is Olivia's humourless steward. Sir Toby Belch is her riotous uncle. Sir Andrew Aguecheek is a silly squire and hopeless suitor. Maria and Fabian are Olivia's servants, and Feste is her witty fool, who moves between households and sees more clearly than anyone.
The Malvolio plot
Sir Toby and Sir Andrew drink and revel late into the night until Malvolio comes down to scold them. Sir Toby's reply is one of the best known lines in Shakespeare: "Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?"
Maria proposes revenge. She forges a love letter in Olivia's handwriting and plants it in the garden. The letter instructs Malvolio to wear yellow stockings cross-gartered, a colour and fashion Olivia detests, to be rude to the other servants, and to smile constantly in her presence. Watched by Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Fabian, Malvolio finds it and is delighted. He obeys to the letter. Olivia, shocked by the change in him, agrees that he seems mad and leaves him in the care of the very people tormenting him. They lock him in a dark room. Feste visits to mock him, first as himself and then disguised as a priest.
The themes
Identity is the central idea. Viola's disguise is a practical solution that becomes a cage, and the play keeps asking how much of who we are depends on how we are seen. Love in Twelfth Night is rarely rational. Orsino's devotion is self-regarding, Olivia's is instant, Antonio's loyalty to Sebastian is the steadiest attachment in the play, and Viola's is the one that must stay silent.
Family is the quieter thread. Viola spends the play mourning a brother she believes drowned, and the comedy only resolves when that loss is undone. Underneath the jokes there is a serious question about pleasure and authority. Malvolio wants order; Sir Toby wants cakes and ale; the play gives the revellers their victory and then shows the cost of it.
How it ends
Sir Toby and Fabian goad Sir Andrew into challenging Cesario to a duel, knowing neither can fight. Antonio interrupts, mistaking Cesario for Sebastian, and is arrested by Orsino's officers. Sir Andrew then slaps the real Sebastian and gets a beating for it. Olivia, seeing the skirmish, takes Sebastian for Cesario and asks him to marry her. They are secretly married in a church.
When both twins finally appear before Olivia and Orsino, the resemblance causes wonder and confusion until Viola reveals who she is and is reunited with her brother. Orsino turns to her with the promise that in other clothes she will be "Orsino's mistress, and his fancy's queen", and they marry. Fabian confesses the plot against Malvolio and reveals that Sir Toby has married Maria. Malvolio swears revenge on his tormentors and stalks off, and Orsino sends Fabian after him to make peace. Feste closes the play with a song.
Why it still matters
Shakespeare drew his plot elements from Barnabe Rich's short story "Of Apollonius and Silla", itself based on a tale by Matteo Bandello, and expanded on the musical interludes and riotous disorder expected of a Twelfth Night entertainment. What he built from that material has outlasted the occasion. The play suits readers who want comedy with an undertow: four weddings, a hundred jokes, and one character left out in the cold at the end, promising revenge.
