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Twelfth Night and Shakespearian Comedy Author(s): Milton Crane Source: Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Winter, 1955), pp. 1-8 Published by: Folger Shakespeare Library in association with George Washington University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2866046 Accessed: 12/11/2009 04:05
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Twelfth Nightand Shakespearian Comedy

MILTON CRANE

HEN Dr. Johnson stated, in his Preface to his edition of Shakespeare's plays, that these jlays were not "in the rigorous and critical sense either tragedies or comedies, but compositions of a distinct kind," freely and casually mingling both forms, he confirmed the opinion of many lesser critics who had either praised or blamed Shakespeare for being less scrupulousin this regardthan Sophoclesor Aristophanes.Dr. Johnson,however, not only applauded this refusal to patrol the frontiers of tragedy and comedy; natural genius was for comedy: he went on to affirmthat Shakespeare's He . . . indulgedhis naturaldisposition, his disposition, Rhymer and as has remarked, him to comedy.In tragedyhe often writes,with great led of appearance toil and study,what is writtenat last with little felicity;but in his comickscenes,he seemsto producewithout labour,what no labour can improve.In tragedyhe is alwaysstrugglingafter some occasionto be comick;but in comedyhe seemsto repose,or to luxuriate, in a mode of as thinkingcongenialto his nature.In his tragickscenesthereis alwayssomeor thing wanting, but his comedyoften surpasses expectation desire.His comedy pleases by the thoughts and language, and his tragedyfor the greater part by incident and action. His tragedy seems to be skill, his comedyto be instinct.1 This judgment was tempered, however, by some severe strictures on Shakespeare'slapses: In his comicksceneshe is seldomvery successful, when he engageshis of in and of characters reciprocations smartness contests sarcasm; their jests are commonlygross,and their pleasantry licentious;neitherhis gentlemen nor his ladies have much delicacy,nor are sufficiently from distinguished of his clowns by any appearance refinedmanners.Whetherhe represented of the real conversation his time is not easy to determine.... There must,. to however,have beenalwayssomemodesof gayetypreferable others,and a. writerought to chusethe best (p. 22). For all his reservationsabout Shakespeare'sfaulty taste in comic manner and matter, Dr. Johnson'sopinion of the comedies, as set forth in his Preface and supportedby his Notes to the plays, is far more favorablethan that of many later critics. The tendency of nineteenth- and twentieth-centurycriticism has been to exalt the tragediesas the supremeachievementof Shakespeare's and art, to consider the comedies as relativelyminor and dated works. The problem of Hamlet is as satisfactorilytimeless as that of Oedipus; but some critics,regarding comedy as irrevocablywedded to the moment, insist on waiting for Profes1

ed. Raleigh (London, I929), on Johnson Shakespeare, Walter

pp. i8-i9.

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sor Sisson to identify the Lady of the Stracheybefore they will consent to render aesthetic judgment on the play in which she so fleetingly figures. Dr. Johnson boldness and candor, and faced the question of the comedies with characteristic gave them the palm; but his successors,to the extent that they concern themselves at all with such basic questions, tend to adopt silently his premise about Shakespeare'smingling of the forms and to discard his conclusion about its success. Some modern critics, to be sure, have preferredto skirt the problem. Professor Parrott, for example, in his comprehensive study of Shakespearian comedy deals with comic elements in the plays wherever he finds them, examining individual comic scenes or parts of scenes as largely independent of the total effect of the plays in which they appear.Such fragmentationof the plays may find justificationin the fact that Shakespeareobviously concernedhimself more with effectivenessof the individual situation than with larger problems of structure; nevertheless, the difference in quality between, let us say, the Porter'sscene in Macbeth and a monologue of Launce in The Two Gentlemen of Verona reflectsimportantdifferencesof conceptionand plan. The difficultythat underliesall such discussions,and that makes most modern criticshesitateeither to agree or to disagreewith Dr. Johnson'sdouble-edged praise of Shakespeare'scomedy, is a profound uncertaintyabout the propriety of treating that comedy as a single, definable thing. Here again Dr. Johnson's empirical definition of comedy in the age of Shakespearemay offer a useful point of departure:"An action which ended happily to the principal persons, however serious or distressful through its intermediateincidents. . . ." But so general a statement does little to enlarge our understanding of Shakespeare's purpose or method; tragedy and comedy must be divided on some more significant principle. Our problem,then, is to expand this definition and to make it more specific with reference to Shakespeare'scomedies. If it is possible to speak of that extraordinarygroup of plays ranging from The Comedy of Errors and A Midsummer-Night's Dream to Measure for Measure and The Tempest in terms more meaningful than those of a happy ending or a haphazardconglomeration practiceas a of laughable incidents, we must seek the solution in Shakespeare's dramatist,not in the realm of metaphysicalspeculation. comedies can be identified with any traThe extent to which Shakespeare's dition of comic drama has been the subjectof severalrecent studies.Nevill Coghill, contrasting Shakespearian comedy (which he calls "romantic") with comedy, has justly remarked:"It is easy to discernthe Jonsonianor "corrective" promptings of two opposed temperamentsin the use of comic form by [Shakespeare and Jonson]; so much so that it hardly makes sense to speak of 'comic form' as if it were a single thing of which both had the same theoreticalconception, to the discipline of which both were in voluntary and agreed subjection. And because it does not seem to make sense, it is often supposed that Shakespeare wrote under no discipline of form, that he followed no particularand definabletraditionof Comedy, but was simply fancy'schild. .. ."2 His answerto was what is in effect Dr. Johnson'sposition is that "Shakespeare following a tradition that evolved during the middle ages" from fourth-centuryLatin gram2

Comedy,"Essaysand Studies (London, I950), "The Basis of Shakespearean

p.

TWELFTH NIGHT AND SHAKESPEARIAN COMEDY

marians, such as Donatus, and which eventually becameformulatedas "romantic" comedy, expressing the idea that "life is to be grasped",using a love-story with a profusion of incidents, and resolving all confusion and misunderstanding through a happy catastrophe. This form ProfessorCoghill opposes to Jonsonian comedy, which he likewise tracesback to late classicaland medieval sources,and which emphasizes the satiricaland correctiveelement ratherthan the joyful and
conciliatory.

The evidence of Shakespeare'scontemporariessuggests that they might have found Professor Coghill's distinction more ingenious than valid. Thomas Heywood's An Apology for Actors, for example, while agreeing with Professor Coghill's grammariansthat the essence of comedy is "Turbulentaprima, tranquilla vltima . . . Comedies begin in trouble, and end in peace . . ." offers a "deffinitionof the Comedy, accordingto the Latins-,"-i.e., Donatus-as "a discourse consisting of diuers institutions, comprehending ciuill and domesticke things, in which is taught, what in our hues and manners is to be followed, what to bee auoyded... ."3 And, in speaking of comedy as written by himself and his colleagues, he lays equal weight on the pleasurableand the didactic elements: [A Comedy] is pleasantly contriuedwith merryaccidents,and intermixt with apt and witty iests,to presentbeforethe Princeat certaintimesof or solemnity, else merrilyfittedto the stage.And what is then the subiectof this harmelesse mirth?eitherin the shapeof a Clowne,to shew otherstheir slouenlyand vnhansomebehauiour, that they may reformethat simplicity in themselues, which othersmake their sport,lest they happento become the like subiectof generallscorneto an auditory,else it intreatesof loue, deridingfoolish inamorates, who spend their ages, their spirits,nay themselues, in the seruile and ridiculousimployments their Mistresses: of and these are mingledwith sportfullaccidents, recreate to suchas of themselues are wholly deuotedto Melancholly, which corrupts bloud:or to refresh the such wearyspiritsas are tired with labour,or study,to moderate cares the and heauinesseof the minde, that they may returneto their tradesand facultieswith more zeale and earnestnesse, after some small soft and pleasant retirement (sigs. F3v-F4r). It seems clear that such a definition, in which echoes of other Elizabethan critics may be discerned,embracesevery kind of comedy and obviates the need for Professor Coghill's two categories.The individual playwright may at will stress either the pleasurableor the didactic,but both elements will be present in his work, and the most successful comic artist, as I hope presently to demonstrate, will be the one who best contrivest5 combine both elements in his play. A work productive of mirth, frequently employing a love-story as its basic matter, agreeablyresolving a disturbingor even dangeroussituationor group of incidents, and exposing vice or correcting folly: such is Elizabethan comedy. Twelfth Night is an admirableexample of this synthesisof the romanticand the didactic; but we may do well to recall that Shakespearecame to such a synthesis by way of an orderly development. The plays generally classed together as Shakespeare's comedies, if we omit
3Thomas Heywood, An Apology for Actors (i612), reprinted with introductions and bibliographical notes by Richard H. Perkinson (New York, 1941), sig. FIT'.

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the chronicle histories with substantial comic subplots, fall into four major groups: (i) the early comedies and farces,including such plays as The Comedy of Errors and The Taming of the Shrew; (2) the great comedies: Twelfth Night and As You Like It; (3) the so-called dark comedies; and (4) the romantic comedies or tragi-comediesof Shakespeare's years.Now the earliest last plays are simple, even classical,in their comic structure;and they make capital of every device known to the writer of farce. The Comedy of Errors is notoriously mechanical in its manipulation of the two Antipholuses and the two Dromios; after the first act, the average playgoer or readercan probablyguess without much difficulty the development of most of the action. (What the readermay not guess, however, is the extraordinary effectivenesson the stage of the mistakes in identity and the knockaboutfarce.) Love's Labour'sLost plays with disguises, swearings and forswearings, sudden reversals-and even the simple Mutt-and-Jeffhumor of Armado and his Moth. The Taming of the Shrew carriesdisguise from the physical to the spiritualplane, although it does not neglect the physical.The taming of Katherinais, of course, the most gratifying of all comic patterns:the biter bit. But we are at leastpermittedto suppose that Petruchio is truly a gentleman and that, by the end of the play, he has reverted to his normal conduct. (Perhaps Mr. Tennessee Williams will one day favor us with a tragic reinterpretationof the psychic damage inflicted by Petruchio on Katherina;Shakespeare, alas, in this play shows characteristic brutality and male chauvinism in not divining the existence of such a problem.) About the early plays, then, we may assume that no great difficultyexists. The main action of each play is normally paralleledby a subplot of clowns: the Antipholuses have their Dromios; King Ferdinand and the Princess have their Berowne and Rosaline and even their Armado and Jacquenetta;the loves of Lysander and Hermia are answered by the marvelous triangle of Oberon, Titania, and Bottom. As we approachthe great comedies of Shakespeare's middle period, we are faced by serious questions concerning the structureof dramatic action and the nature of dramaticeffect. What has the tragic-or at least melodramatic-story of Hero and Claudio to do with the comedy of Beatrice and Benedick? How does the sentimentalromanceof Orsino and Viola come to be played to the raucous accompanimentof Sir Toby Belch? Twelfth Night deservesspecialconsideration because it has the greatest complexity of plot structure,and becausethe net effect of the play, in spite of Malvolio, is not comic. Twelfth Night is, moreover, a crucial case in the study of Shakespearian comedy, as it exhibits the chief problems that are to be raised and resolved less successfully in the problem comedies and the last plays. If it is possible to demonstrate the pattern that Shakespeareemployed in Twelfth Night-a combination of consistent and ingenious variationson a favorite theme of classicalcomedy-then Shakespeare's technique of comic inversion becomes clearly recognizable;it is this technique which, when pressedtoo far and insufficiently controlledby comic decorum,produces such bafflingand irritatingworks as Measurefor Measure. Twelfth Night is compounded of three plots. Central to the play, as Mark Van Doren has well said, is Malvolio,the gull, criticaland waspish, an efficiency expert, a busybody.To pay him back for his insults, Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Maria contrive to lead him by the nose until he has disgraced himself with

TWELFTH NIGHT AND SHAKESPEARIAN COMEDY

Olivia, been confined as a madman, and put out of his humor publicly in the presenceof his mistressand his tormentors.He is a comic protagonistpar excellence; his ambition and his vanity are precisely the comic vices by means of which he is plagued. The counterfeitedletter is exquisitely designed so that he will put just such a constructionon it as will gratify his self-love and lead him to his own destruction.And, once he has been forced to see himself as a gull, in Olivia's pitying line, "Alas poor fool, how have they baffledthee!",Malvolio has nothing to reply but "I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you!" before he rushesoff. This is such a plot as would have delighted Ben Jonson or any writer of classicalsatiricalcomedy; ProfessorCampbellhas justly called it "Shakespeare's comedy of humours."Its mainspringis the unmaskingof a gull by his own witless conceit; it is enhanced by the parallel action in which Sir Andrew is persuaded to court Olivia, only to have his head broken by way of reward. The and baiting of Malvolio is unrelievedin its comic heartlessness, is not even superficially moral in its purpose.Others may prate about reforming the gull by putting him out of his humor; there can be no 'doubt,as we watch the undoing of Malvolio, that we are intended to share Sir Toby's sadisticpleasurein the process, and that no one takes the slightest interest in whether all this will make a better man of Malvolio. (Even Moliere and Shaw occasionallyseem to protest too much about the correctivefunction of the comic artist. But then every profession from time to time finds it convenientto make a show of public service.) At the risk of laboring the obvious, I should like to recall the-essentialelements of Malvolio'sstory: the progresstoward self-recognitionof a man who is partly self-deceivedand partly deceived by others; who assumes a form of disguise in order (as he thinks) to achieve his end, but who must ultimatelydivest himself of it; who loves, but-as he comes to realize-in vain. He is at length brought to utter confusion, but his downfall produces pain only in himself, a ridiculous figure (in spite of nineteenth-and twentieth-centuryromanticizing) and therefore worthy of suffering the typical fate of a comic protagonist. The second of the three plots of Twelfth Night deals with the frustrated love of Olivia for Viola-Cesario and its happy resolution in the marriage of Olivia and Sebastian.The first interview of Olivia and the disguised Viola is a brilliantly contrived comic exchange, the end of which is tempered by Olivia's confession of love for the supposed youth. Here are all the elements of a romantic plot of frustratedlove in the manner of Beaumont and Fletcher.Shakespeare,however, is content to develop the emotionalpossibilitiesof this situation for only one additional scene; then, using preciselysuch a casual, perfunctory, and mechanicaldevice as he had unblushinglyexploited in the farcicalComedy of Errors,he substitutesSebastianfor Viola and packs the lovers off to a priest. Let no one tell us of the profound psychologythat Shakespearehere displaysin making Viola and Sebastian identical twins in wit and intellect as well as in form and feature. Shakespeareis merely hustling his minor charactersoff the stage with the least possibletrouble, whateverthe cost in plausibility.In this respect, at least, Twelfth Night is no less a romancethan The Winter'sTale. Note, however, that the story of Viola, Olivia, and Sebastian, like that of Malvolio, turns on Olivia's awakening from a deception-actually a double deception, producedpartly by a disguise and partlyby lack of self-knowledge.She

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firstis madeto realize,whenshe becomes infatuated with Viola,thather determination mournher brother to sevenyearscan be overcome a twinkling: in
Even so quicklymay one catchthe plague? MethinksI feel this youth'sperfections With an invisibleand subtlestealth To creepin at mine eyes.(I. v. 314-317)

she Similarly, mustpresently abaseherselfbeforethe youngpage,beg his hand in marriage, hale him beforea priest,offeringno seemlier and excusefor her unladylike hastethan
Plightme the full assurance yourfaith of That my most jealiousand too doubtfulsoul Maylive at peace.(IV. iii. 26-28)

The most radiant,exquisite,and unmatchabje beautyhas indeed learnedto humbleherself. Fromthis pointforward, has littleto do in the playbut to she helpcomplete confusion Malvolio. the of The thirdplot is, of course, storyof Violaand Orsino. as Malvolio the Just is deceivedby Mariaand Sir Toby, and Oliviaby Viola, so Orsinois baffled partlyby his infatuation Olivia (which steepshim in a fashionable for melanViola. choly) and by his inabilityto penetrate disguiseof the unfortunate the This is a comedyof errors whichthe only character is fully awareof in who her the situationis powerless remedyit, and can only apostrophize page's to garments:
Disguise,I see thou art a wickedness Whereinthe pregnant enemydoes much. How easyis it for the proper false In women's waxenhearts settheirforms! to Alas, our frailtyis the cause,not we! For suchas we aremadeof, suchwe be. How will this fadge?Mymaster lovesherdearly; And I (poormonster)fond as muchon him; And she (mistaken)seemsto dote on me. (II.i.28-36)

we Now, whereas takesatisfaction the untrussing Malvolio, we never in of and reallyfear that the awakening Olivia will pass beyondthe boundaries of of comedy(as is madealtogether plainby the simpleand mechanical contrivance her thatextricates fromherpredicament), storyof ViolaandOrsino somethe is comicin outline,in its development thing else again.Althoughunmistakably to suggestions imthis actionseizeseveryopportunity developsentimental and It does not excludesentiment. plications. may be arguedthat comic decorum On this point authorities when Rosalindpermitsher disagree;nevertheless, and mindto run on Orlando herwished-for she almostat oncemocksherjoys, self for so doing.Violacannot;not onlyis hersituation her beyond control, but one she is temperamentally with Heroand Celia,not withRosalind Beatrice. or In otherwords,she is the kind of heroinewhom one does not expectto find but playinga leadingrolein comedy, rather servingas a Juliato a KateHardcastle.

COMEDY TWELFTH NIGHT AND SHAKESPEARIAN

thingaboutTwelfthNight is not onlythatViolaplaysthe Now the curious central part,but that the patentlycomic actionof Malvolio, leadingfeminine the of to the structure the play,is clearly actionthatleastengages thoughit be whatwe mayregard In attention. short,hereis a playthatinverts Shakespeare's it to with respect the importance in as the normalorderof elements a comedy, storyof Viola and Orsinois in first place; assignsto each. The sentimental to subordinate it is the moreovertlycomic with it but clearly closelyconnected and storyof Olivia,Viola,and Sebastian; in last placeis the comicgulling of a the Malvolio. threeplots havefundamentally samestructure: comicproAll tagonistis gulled by anotherperson,and is at lengthforcedto recognizeand uponhim.Butit makesa that takeaccount the imposition hasbeenpracticed of on whether, the one hand,the gull is Orsino,unwillingly verygreatdifference on by deceived Viola,or whether, the otherhand,Mariaand Sir Toby arejoythe has Shakespeare so harmonized threeactions Malvolio. fully hoodwinking effects;but levelsand with different on that they answerone another different seemedto him of paramount therecan be no doubtas to whichof theseactions and used it with He interestand importance. inventedthe storyof Malvolio, first of rareskill as the foundation his play; but he was concerned of all with with Olivia. Viola and secondarily of of in appear the othercomedies thisperiod Shakespeare's Similar patterns is of deception Orlando echoedin half-unwilling half-willing, career. Rosalind's Phebe;but the gay mockeryof the uninher dealingswith the shepherdess of hibitedheroine,confident her power,lends the play a unity of comictone offersa and of that is beyondTwelfthNight. The deception Beatrice Benedick here lovesof Hero andClaudio; to comiccounterpart the grimandimplausible its actionandimposes the the comicunderplot usurps placeof the moreserious tone on the entireplay. to can Such a line of investigation be usefullyextended the latercomedies if however,it is sufficient we can show that Shakeas well. For our purpose, to speare,beginningwith a theme of classicalcomedy,proceeded devise a more that action,variations departed on seriesof variations this fundamental If thoughnot in theirmethods. the total and morefromcomedyin theireffects la of effectof TwelfthNight, owingto the predominance Viola'sstory,suggests we couldapprove, shouldnot seek morethana Goldsmith come'die larmoyante comedyor of specialtheories Shakespearian to explainthis fact by postulating scenes.Aboveall, we should plays by atomizingShakespeare's into individual of not neglectthe importance the play'sstructure the grosslyanti-romantic in and plot of Malvolio his tormentors. leadsone other with Shakespeare's greatcomedies, TwelfthNight, together comicgeniuswas hardly to conclude praiseof Shakespeare's that Dr. Johnson's surpass with him thatthe comedies to one although hesitates affirm exaggerated, that however, One cannotagreewith Dr. Johnson, in the tragedies excellence. The earlycomedies, playswere neithercomediesnor tragedies. Shakespeare's and Dream,are surelytruecomedies; in them such as A Midsummer-Night's a and that employed comicstructure method he, like his colleagues, Shakespeare and fromthe ancients turnedto his own uses.The darkcomedies hadinherited in in normalpractice comedybecause them he fails departfrom Shakespeare's

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to reconcile conflicting elements romance satire. of and The greatcomedies such as TwelfthNight show,on the contrary, Shakespeare working effectively within the tradition classical of comedyand enlarging to encompass richand harit a moniousdevelopment fundamentally of comicmatter. Washington, C. D.