Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare (1564–1616), 1602
Shipwreck, disguise and a household in mourning: a comedy where everyone loves the wrong person and the fool is the only one telling the truth. The comedy moves with a bright, singing wit, but under the jokes runs a steady ache of longing and mistaken love.
Feels like joy and longing. About love, identity and freedom.
Who it’s for
You may enjoy it if you like verbal sparring, disguise plots and comedy that lets sadness and longing sit alongside the jokes. The Elizabethan English and dense wordplay can be demanding on the page, especially if you are new to Shakespeare.
Why read it
It gives you a comedy that takes love seriously without losing its lightness, and language that rewards attention with wit and feeling.
Pages from the book
Grief and love look almost identical when someone refuses to speak of either.
She never told her love,But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,And with a green and yellow melancholyShe sat like patience on a monument,Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?We men may say more, swear more: but indeedOur shows are more than will; for still we proveMuch in our vows, but little in our love. What you would build at the gate of someone who refuses to open it.
Make me a willow cabin at your gate,And call upon my soul within the house;Write loyal cantons of contemned loveAnd sing them loud even in the dead of night;Halloo your name to the reverberate hillsAnd make the babbling gossip of the airCry out “Olivia!” O, You should not restBetween the elements of air and earth,But you should pity me! The humiliation of saying it first, and the argument for why it is worth it.
O, what a deal of scorn looks beautifulIn the contempt and anger of his lip!A murderous guilt shows not itself more soonThan love that would seem hid: love’s night is noon.Cesario, by the roses of the spring,By maidhood, honour, truth and every thing,I love thee so, that, maugre all thy pride,Nor wit nor reason can my passion hide.Do not extort thy reasons from this clause,For that I woo, thou therefore hast no cause;But rather reason thus with reason fetter,Love sought is good, but given unsought better. William Shakespeare.Twelfth Night was performed at Middle Temple in 1602. Its title marks the twelfth night after Christmas, the feast of misrule when servants briefly became masters.
Books that feel like this
Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems
Christina Rossetti, 1862
Also longing and love.
More by William Shakespeare
Hamlet
William Shakespeare, 1603
A prince in mourning delays, dissembles, and thinks too much, while a court watches every move. Read for the language, stay for the recognitions.
Romeo and Juliet
William Shakespeare, 1597
Two teenagers from feuding families fall in love over three days, and the adults around them keep choosing sides.
Macbeth
William Shakespeare, 1606
A soldier is greeted by three strangers who promise him a crown, and we watch, line by line, how quickly a decent man can argue himself into murder.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is Twelfth Night for me?
- You may enjoy it if you like verbal sparring, disguise plots and comedy that lets sadness and longing sit alongside the jokes. The Elizabethan English and dense wordplay can be demanding on the page, especially if you are new to Shakespeare.
- What is Twelfth Night like?
- The comedy moves with a bright, singing wit, but under the jokes runs a steady ache of longing and mistaken love. Feels like joy and longing. About love, identity and freedom.
- What should I read after Twelfth Night?
- If you liked Twelfth Night, try Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë), The Enchanted April (Elizabeth von Arnim) and Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen).
A taste of the feed
Looking at someone you shouldn't, knowing precisely what it will cost.
No sooner did I see that his attention was riveted on them, and that I might gaze without being observed, than my eyes were drawn involuntarily to his face; I could not keep their lids under control: they would rise, and the irids would fix on him. I looked, and had an acute pleasure in looking,—a precious yet poignant pleasure; pure gold, with a steely point of agony: a pleasure like what the thirst-perishing man might feel who knows the well to which he has crept is poisoned, yet stoops and drinks divine draughts nevertheless.
Jane Eyre · Charlotte Brontë
Why we wrap ourselves in small things when the night gets too large.
She pulled her wrap closer round her with a gesture of defence, of keeping out and off. She didn’t want to grow sentimental. Difficult not to, here; the marvellous night stole in through all one’s chinks, and brought in with it, whether one wanted them or not, enormous feelings—feelings one couldn’t manage, great things about death and time and waste; glorious and devastating things, magnificent and bleak, at once rapture and terror and immense, heart-cleaving longing. She felt small and dreadfully alone. She felt uncovered and defenceless. Instinctively she pulled her wrap closer. With this thing of chiffon she tried to protect herself from the eternities.
The Enchanted April · Elizabeth von Arnim
Marianne decides that a calm heart deserves no credit for staying calm.
Such behaviour as this, so exactly the reverse of her own, appeared no more meritorious to Marianne, than her own had seemed faulty to her. The business of self-command she settled very easily:—with strong affections it was impossible, with calm ones it could have no merit. That her sister’s affections were calm, she dared not deny, though she blushed to acknowledge it; and of the strength of her own, she gave a very striking proof, by still loving and respecting that sister, in spite of this mortifying conviction.
Sense and Sensibility · Jane Austen
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