Whether Shakespeare had actually read or seen on the stage a story or play which embodied the main features of the leading plot of Twelfth Night we cannot say with absolute certainty. That he knew the plot had been used before for stories or plays is beyond a doubt. And there is at least a very strong presumption that he deliberately adapted for his own purposes one or other or all of the pieces mentioned above.

Supposed

sources:

Manningham in his diary speaks of the resemblance of Twelfth Night to an Italian play which he calls ‘Inganni’ (the deceived). Probably he had in his mind a play of that name by Gonzaga (1592) in which a girl masquerades as a man under the name of Cesare (cf. Viola's Cesario), and is consequently mistaken for her brother. But there is little farther resemblance between Inganni and Twelfth Night.

'Inganni'.

Possibly, however, Manningham was thinking of another play called Gl'Ingannati (the cheated), the likeness of which to Twelfth Night is much more marked. Here 'Gl'Inganwe have the heroine disguising herself as a boy, nati.' taking service with a man with whom she is in love, wooing on his behalf the woman with whom he is in love, and winning the lady's love for herself; the appearance on the scene of the brother, confusion between brother and sister, marriage of the lady to the brother, subsequent discovery of the whole blunder, and general joyful marrying off of everybody. This Italian play was pretty certainly based on Bandello's story above referred to.

Yet it is by no means sure that Shakespeare knew of Gl'Ingannati. Probably he did. The literary culture of the day was drawn from Italy; Italian words are rather abundant in this play; and Shakespeare was certainly well acquainted with a good deal of Italian literature, though his knowledge of it may have been derived almost entirely from translators. Still the story of 'Apolonius and Silla' is quite near enough to that of Twelfth Night to have served as the dramatist's model without his going farther afield. On the other hand, Barnabie Riche may very possibly have based

his story on Bandello's. It is only important to notice that the likeness between Twelfth Night and Gl'Ingannati does not prove that Shakespeare was actually acquainted with the Italian play; although, just as the name of Cesare in Inganni suggests that as a direct source of the English play, the occurrence of the name Malevolti in Gl'Ingannati looks as if it were the original of Shakespeare's Malvolio.

The story of Apolonius and Silla presents the same leading features, though some of the details vary. Apolonius is the 'Apolonius Duke of Constantinople; Silla follows him for and Silla.' love, and enters his service as a page. The lovemaking at cross purposes goes on in the same way; Silla's brother Silvio appears, and except for a certain grossness of incident which Shakespeare almost alone of Elizabethans successfully avoids, the story works out just as do Twelfth Night and Gl'Ingannati.

Conclusion.

Thus we find that Shakespeare's main plot is a story of which the principal features were common property, while two extant versions, one in English, and one in Italian, bear a close resemblance in many details to the particular version used by Shakespeare; and in another Italian variant, in other respects much less close to Twelfth Night, the heroine adopts the name of Cesare, as Viola adopts that of Cesario We may fairly conclude, though not with certainty, that Shakespeare had read one or other, perhaps all of them; at any rate he did not construct those main incidents out of his inner consciousness; and if he actually did come across one of those versions, we may be perfectly certain that he would have had no scruple whatever about making precisely as much use of it as suited his convenience. But there is no trace of the underplot, in which Malvolio is the central figure, having been borrowed from anywhere at all; the interweaving of the plot and underplot is entirely original, and every one of the characters is a creation of Shakespeare's own.

The name of the play has no obvious connection with the story. Probably it is merely intended to convey that the comedy was suited for production on Twelfth Night, a feast

set apart for mirth and revels. Possibly it was specially intended for production on the Twelfth Night The Name. of 1602, just before it was witnessed by Man

ningham. The sub-title 'What You Will' is precisely paralleled by the name of As You Like It 'call it Twelfth Night, or anything else you please'. It appears that some people did please to call it 'Malvolio' instead, as that name has been written into the copy owned by Charles I.

Twelfth Night appears to have maintained its popularity; it was witnessed (and severely condemned) thrice by Samuel Pepys; it was edited in 1703 by Burnaby, after Stage History. the usual method of the Restoration' dramatists when they edited Shakespeare; Kemble in his day acted the part of Malvolio; and it continues to hold the stage at the present day.

3. APPRECIATION.

Professor Dowden has divided Shakespeare's work into four periods. In the first, the dramatist was learning how to work; in the second, he had mastered the Shakespeare's method, and attained the high-water mark in four periods. the simpler forms of production, his mood throughout this period being buoyant, vigorous, and for the most part glad; in the third stage, the problems of life had assumed for him a grimmer and more complex aspect: to it belong the great tragedies and the two miscalled comedies of All's Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure; in the fourth he had fought his way through the valley of the shadow and emerged into a clear and serene atmosphere, the mirthfulness of his earlier years and the gloom of his third period giving place to a calm and tender cheerfulness; the plays of this time being neither tragedies nor comedies proper, but romances.

A degree of doubt attaches to the dates of several plays; and it is, of course, obvious that the prevalent mood of one period may have been the passing mood of another; that the dramatist may have fallen into temporary gloom, or shaken off his depression, or reached forth by anticipation to the

final sense of calm elevation. But, roughly speaking, this classification of the plays is borne out by the general evidences of date. In 1601 and 1602 Shakespeare was passing from the joyous to the tragic mood, and Twelfth Night may be reckoned as the last comedy of the second stage.

The second

period: Characteristics.

A glance at the list of plays which were probably written from 1596 to 1601 will at once reveal the close kinship of mood which pervades them. Julius Cæsar is the only tragedy, and that falls in the closing year. There are two pre-eminently boisterous comedies, The Taming of the Shrew and the Merry Wives of Windsor. In all the rest, pure comedy and romance are combined--whether the romance of war or the romance of love—Henry IV., Henry V., Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Much Ado, and Twelfth Night.

This is the primary characteristic of every one of these plays. The romance may predominate in one, the comedy in another; the humour may be more rollicking when Falstaff appears, the romance may verge on tragedy in the story of Hero; the ingredients, in short, may be mixed in slightly varying proportions; but (to vary the metaphor) the keynote of each is the same—an intense and thorough enjoyment of life, and health, and vigour, a readiness to take things as they come, a freedom from over-anxiety about the morrow, an absence of psychological or metaphysical riddling. By way of illustration, not of definition, one might compare the plays of this period with the novels of Walter Scott, and with less accuracy the plays of the next period with the novels of George Eliot. It is always rather surprising to know that George Eliot regarded Scott as her master; but it becomes less so when we remember that the Shakespeare who drew Hamlet was the same who had drawn Rosalind.

Intimately associated with this keen physical vitality is the somewhat astonishing impulsiveness which marks so many Common note of the leading characters throughout this group of impulsiveof plays. Meditation, hesitation, carefully laid schemes, elaborate reasonings abound in the later works. Here the moment's inspiration is acted upon with a habitual

ness.

promptitude which would take our breath away if we did not feel it to be so supremely natural in these radiant damsels and their lovers, whose brains are as active as their muscles, and whose muscles are trained to perfection. It takes Rosalind five minutes to make up her mind to assume male attire and tramp off to Arden. Portia's device is no less quickly conceived and swiftly carried out. Neither they nor

romances.

6

Viola have a qualm about the possible complications that may result. And the consistency and thoroughness with which heroes, heroines, and minor characters as well, fall in love at first sight, is of the essence of the temper of these Rosalind and Orlando, Celia and Oliver, see each other once, and never a doubt enters the mind of one of them again. Phebe falls in love with the supposed Ganymede at her first interview. Claudio notices Hero for the first time, and forthwith proposes to marry her. Viola is in love with Orsino three days after their first meeting; Olivia falls in love with Cesario' and Sebastian with Olivia before they have known each other for five minutes. And they are all perfectly ready to act on this sudden inspiration with a magnificent confidence, eminently characteristic of a time when men habitually had to make up their minds to deal with sudden emergencies on the spur of the moment; when the spirit of adventure was rife, and a considerable recklessness, coupled with a ready hand and a ready tongue, were essentials of success, so that without them romance and comedy were like enough to give place to swift tragedy in real life no less than on the stage.

When we come to compare details, we find a variety of resemblances in the stage devices of at least three of the comedies. In As You Like It, The Merchant, Resemblances and Twelfth Night, the plot turns on the heroine in details. passing herself off as a youth. Phebe falls in love with Rosalind, as Olivia does with Viola. Feste is a more feather-brained Touchstone, as Lancelot Gobbo is a kind of clownish Feste. Lorenzo is first cousin to Orsino, as Sebastian is very near akin to Orlando. And in all these three plays we may particularly remark that it is not the