Twelfth Night (Folger Shakespeare Library) [Paperback]

William Shakespeare (Author), Paul Werstine (Author), Dr. Barbara A. Mowat (Editor)

Book Description

Release date: July 26, 2005 | Series: Folger Shakespeare Library

Each edition includes:

• Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play
• Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play
• Scene-by-scene plot summaries
• A key to famous lines and phrases
• An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language
• An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play
• Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books

Essay by Catherine Belsey

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is home to theworld's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet forShakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open tothe public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performancesand programs. For more information, visit www.folger.edu.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

William Shakespeare was born on April 1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, on England’s Avon River. When he was eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway. The couple had three children—their older daughter, Susanna, and the twins, Judith and Hamnet. Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, died in childhood.

The bulk of Shakespeare’s working life was spent, not in Stratford, but in the theater world of London, where he established himself professionally by the early 1590s. He had a successful career in London as a playwright and actor and was a shareholder in the acting company the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He produced most of his plays between 1589 and 1613. Sometime between 1610 and 1613, Shakespeare is thought to have retired from the stage and returned home to Stratford, where he died in 1616.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (July 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743484967
• ISBN-13: 978-0743484961
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 0.7 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #72,996 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Feast of the Epiphany June 3, 2011

By A Certain Bibliophile

Format:Paperback

I read this in preparation for going to see an upcoming production of this play put on by "Shakespeare in the Park" that's going to be playing June 1st through the 4th of this year in the Botanical Gardens. Considering the myriad summaries and expositions of this play, I won't recapitulate those here. What I will do, both for my personal use and for the remote possibility that someone else might find some use in them, is post my own thoughts and notes I took as I read it. Hopefully they'll serve as an aide memoire if I ever need one.

ACT I: Overall themes: identity (masque?), rejection, and desire. It asks whether or not love is something real, or just another human artifice, much like the music that Count Orsino "feeds" on. Orsino's switch of affection from Olivia to Viola is a hint that he loves the idea of love more than one of the women themselves. He's a parody of the hopeless romantic. Viola's wish to be transformed into a eunuch is indicative of gender liminality - or at least this seems to be a common argument, even though it's readily known that men played all roles in Elizabethan and Jacobean theater (so I'm a little confused by the single-minded focus that much modern scholarship has put on gender in this play). Perhaps this gender ambiguity is a sort of defense mechanism to deal with the uncertainty inherent with being tossed on an unknown island. There has also been some focus on Orsino's shift of affection toward Viola (Cesario) from a platonic friendship to a more romantic one. (Could our more modern emotional coldness associated with masculinity be coloring this reading, too?) Feste is obviously one of the cleverest people in the play. "Cucullus non facit monachum" indeed! As a critique of courtly love, this act accomplishes a lot, and Feste comes out being one of the least foolish people on the stage.

ACT II: Malvolio (literally, from the Latin, "ill will"), the only character who takes himself much too seriously, is tricked into the tomfoolery that he himself so deplores, ultimately proving Feste right: it's not just the role of the fool to entertain folly.

ACT III: Even though, considering Malvolio's transformation from joy-hating blowhard into romantic lover is a drastic one, that Olivia thinks him mad might be telling. Is there any room here for a sort of Foucauldian discussion of what constitutes "madness and civilization" in Elizabethan England? From the little that I've seen of the scholarly literature, I haven't yet seen any discussions that run along these lines.

3.0 out of 5 stars Not my favorite play May 13, 2013

By JCB

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

A familiar scenario, but not one very entertaining. Girl pretending to a boy, mistaken identities, fast proposals, and people falling in 'love' after three sentences...etc etc. Reading this play made me long for the James Polk biography I had just finished. But it's Shakespeare so it was worthwhile.

5.0 out of 5 stars 12th Night (Folger) April 17, 2013

By Linda Hoyne

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Needed this book and 2 others for a Shakespeare class I was taking. All my books were by the Folger Shakespeare Library which gives good comprehensive notes on the opposite page of each page of the play. Overall it is done very well.