The Shakespeares Use of Language on the Twelth Night - Literature review Example

Language in Twelfth Night Act Scene 5 William Shakespeare is today widely regarded as a master playwright and most students in the Western world have studied at least one of his plays within an academic context. However, his plays weren’t originally intended to be the subject of intense scholastic study but instead to provide an evening’s worth of entertainment with perhaps a little education and social enlightenment thrown in. “Shakespeare’s plays were written to be performed to an audience from different social classes and of varying levels of intellect. Thus they contain down-to-earth characters who appeal to the working classes, side-by-side with complexities of plot which would satisfy the appetites of the aristocrats among the audience” (Geraghty, 2002). To create these complexities that could interest the aristocracy as well as the commoners, Shakespeare’s plays usually contained some form of commentary upon his society and its values within the text and Twelfth Night, or, What You Will is no exception. The play is a romantic comedy, relating the story of a pair of twins washed up separately upon the same shore, each thinking the other is dead, which happen to come individually upon a pair of nobles and romantic foolishness ensues. Through a variety of language styles, diction and word play, Shakespeare manages to convey social position as well as degree of intelligence within his characters in such a way that calls into question the prevailing assumptions and conceptions of his day as can be seen through an analysis of Act 1, Scene 5 of the play. This scene is neatly divided by the arrivals of two of the characters to Olivia’s house. At the opening of the scene, Feste, the house jester, returns after an unexplained absence and must charm his way back into his mistress’ good graces. In doing so, he makes jokes with the other characters present until the scene is interrupted by the arrival of Viola, disguised as Cesario, delivering a message of love from Duke Orsino for Olivia. The conversation between Olivia and Cesario sparks an immediate and intense interest from Olivia. In both halves of this scene, language variety reveals social class as well as sincerity of intention within the characters portrayed. An example of how variety of language style is used in the first part of this scene can be found as the language style of Feste changes depending upon whom he is speaking with. As he speaks with fellow servant Maria, his responses are quick witticisms based upon sexual innuendo: “He that is well hanged in this world needs to fear no colors” (4-5). However, when he begins to speak with Olivia, the mistress of the house, his language becomes more refined and formal as he responds to her not with quips but with complicated riddles as he begs to prove her a fool if she doesn’t believe her brother’s soul is in hell: “The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother’s soul, being in heaven” (64-65). His serious observations are placed within gentling tones of jest and suggest a deeper understanding than the words themselves convey. His style is contrasted against that of Malvolio, which is also intelligent but takes a darker, more sinister flare: “Infirmity, that decays the wise, doth ever make the better fool” (71-72). While the prose itself is different between these characters, Shakespeare varies the tone to a greater degree in his contrast of prose with verse, as is seen in the second half of the scene. Upon the arrival of Viola, disguised as Cesario, the language of the scene begins to change. At the meeting of strangers and the unfamiliar role of the servant for Viola, this portion of the scene opens with a great deal of confusion of language as Viola alternates between false flattery and complete honesty. She addresses Olivia as “most radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable beauty” (162) even though she cannot see her face nor knows whether or not she is talking with the right woman. At the same time, Viola asserts that she is “not that I play” (176). As the two women, one believed to be a man, begin to talk of matters of love, the language shifts from the base prose of the rude classes and rises into the blank verse of the upper class. As she answers with her own words Olivia’s question of what she would do in courtship, Viola answers “Make me a willow cabin at your gate / And call upon my soul within the house; / Write loyal cantons of contemned love / And sing them loud even in the dead of night” (254-257) and reveals her higher status. This makes her eligible by class for Olivia’s interest and begins to develop Shakespeare’s theme regarding the frivolity and foolishness of romantic love. The diction used within this scene serves to begin making distinctions between the characters of the individuals as compared to their social class. For purposes of clarity, the definition of diction used in this discussion refers to the speaker’s “distinctive vocabulary choices and styles of expression” as it is divided between denotation, the literal meaning, and connotation, the attitudes and feelings, associated with the word (Diction, 2008). An example of how diction is used to convey a sense of the intelligence of the character can be found in Feste’s plea to Olivia to remember “I wear not motley in my brain” (51-52). The word ‘motley’ is used for its denotation, the literal appearance of his motley or multi-colored costume as well as for its connotation, that of a fool or simpleton. The register of this statement, though, is quite formal, immediately establishing an intellectual and serious tone despite any lightness of delivery thanks to its syntax, or word order. The intellectual turn of phrase brings to bear the contrast between his statement and the connotative assumptions made by his clothing. The impossibility of imagery, thus invoked through intellectual engagement and denotative language characterizes Feste as a highly intelligent and observant man. In the same way the Feste reveals his intelligence ranks him much higher in the social scale than his position might otherwise indicate Viola reveals through small hints in even her rude speech that she is not as she seems. Early in her interview with Olivia, Viola tells her “what is yours to bestow is not yours to reserve” (180), a statement that sounds quite similar to the type of wise quips that have just been thrown by the jester. The deeper intelligence here is that Olivia will be unable to dictate to whom her heart will be given. The tradition of Romantic love, and the position taken by Shakespeare in the play, is that love is analogous to a sickness and infests faster than the plague. Through the form of Viola’s language upon laying eyes on the beauty of Olivia’s face, shifting as it does into blank verse and containing the register of romantic address, Shakespeare underscores this rapidity of love’s onset. The first words Viola utters when Olivia removes her veil are “’Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white / Nature’s own sweet and cunning hand laid on. / Lady, you are the cruell’st she alive / If you will lead these graces to the grave, / And leave the world no copy” (225-229). Her vocabulary calls up reference to some of Shakespeare’s sonnets and suggests an educated and active mind. While the language used throughout the scene has served continuously to both make distinctions between social classes and to highlight the differences among intelligences, a great deal of word play is used to emphasize the various themes of the play. The entire first half of the scene is dedicated to developing the theme of foolishness as something equally evident in all levels of society. Throughout this segment, Feste, the “allowed fool” (89), demonstrates through his word play that he is shrewder than the others regardless of their position. As he plays with the concepts of mourning and afterlife, he proves Olivia is a fool for pledging seven years of mourning for a deceased brother as discussed above. As he engages in conversation with Maria, he continues to turn the conversation into innocuous chatter that takes on a fatherly air as he mentions “many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage” (18), thus turning on the meaning of the word ‘hanging’ to create sexual innuendo and marital council out of threats of violence. There are plenty of other turns of phrase that work to develop the theme of foolishness within this scene as well. The appearance of the drunk Sir Toby, for example, gives Feste the opportunity to point out how gentlemen are just as susceptible to foolishness as other men. Olivia points out the foolishness of Malvolio as she chides him “you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a distempered appetite” (85-86). When chastened somewhat for her rudeness in refusing to leave the gate until she has had the chance to see Olivia, Viola responds that she “leaned from my entertainment” (204), as she refers to the greeting she received from drunk Sir Toby and the subsequent parade of servants in the form of Malvolio to send her away with foolish claims of sickness or fatigue, demonstrating the foolishness of the house as a whole. Through the scene, everyone is shown to be a fool in some way through the simple expedient of wordplay. The language used within this specific scene serves to make distinctions between social and intellectual positions of the various characters as well as to bring out some of the major themes Shakespeare intended. By varying language styles, Shakespeare illustrates how various members of society would interact with each other, depending upon whether their social status was similar or quite different from the speaker. This is shown as Feste interacts with Maria, a woman of his own social class, and then with Olivia, a woman of a much higher social class and his employer. Although his language takes on a higher caliber when he speaks with Olivia, gravitating toward a more intellectual register, it remains written in the more common prose of the lower classes rather than the higher order of verse usually associated with people of nobility. This difference is brought forward through the conversation of Olivia and Viola. While it starts out in the rude prose of the commoner, the two women quickly fall into the verse of nobility, free verse so as to remove some of the official formality of iambic pentameter, yet still organized in thought and manner consistent with higher thinking. From careful choice of vocabulary used by each character, Shakespeare also enables his characters to play with the words they use, sometimes intending the most common definition of a term and sometimes deliberately twisting the meaning into some form of slang so as to divert conversation into a less dangerous arena or to direct it to the matter immediately at hand. Through language, Shakespeare’s audience would have been easily able to identify which of the characters were commoners and which were aristocracy as well as to understand how the foolishness of love could easily affect anyone, regardless of intelligence or social positions. Works Cited “Diction.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. (July 25, 2008). August 1, 2008 Geraghty, Jenia. “William Shakespeare. Twelfth Night.” Literature Study Online. (November 2002). August 1, 2008 < http://www.literature-study-online.com/essays/twelfth-night.html> Shakespeare, William. “Twelfth Night, or, What You Will.” William Shakespeare: The Complete Works. Alfred Harbage (Ed.). New York: Viking Books, 1969: 305-334. Read More