Shakespeare was the father of twins, a boy and a girl, and perhaps this is why he embraces notions of twins and twinning so obviously in his plays. Questions of desire, love, and loss come from a deep place in this story-and I think that has something to do with Shakespeare’s own experience. (“What country, friend, is this?” “If music be the food of love, play on,” etc.) The question “why can’t you love me back?” lingers in this play. As dramaturg Alison Carey notes, nearly every scene in this play opens with a question or a comment about wanting or wondering or both. We do not choose whom we love-and that means that love can inspire more questions than answers at times. The play’s second title is perhaps the one closer Shakespeare’s intention as it embraces more of the story: “What you will” or “What you want or desire.” Twelfth Night was the final celebration of the Christmas season (as in “The 12 Days of Christmas”) the day was celebrated with parties and performances and involved a temporary subversion of status, as whoever acted as the “lord of misrule” could act as king for the night and tell everyone what to do. The full title “Twelfth Night or What You Will” hints at both the raucous, comical aspects of the story and the deeper, more difficult questions about love and desire. The title of this play points to its mixed nature. Twelfth Night is no exception to this expectation of comedies. The comic genre gravitates toward a conclusion of procreative union. “The world must be peopled!” Benedick exclaims in Much Ado about Nothing. Comedy, as a genre, moves from a place of disorder to order-a community that is off-kilter moves toward social stability embodied in the uniting of a married couple. Twelfth Night or What You Will presents a duality of loss and love embodied in the pairing of characters-twins as well as lovers.
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