"Cliff Notes - Twelfth Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

ridiculous for him to hope to marry someone as high above him as
Olivia.

Below these characters are the servants, the lower class. If
they had little in the way of rights, they also had little in
the way of obligations. Therefore, they are far freer to
indulge in foolishness of one sort or another, and these are the
characters who are likely to be involved in scenes of slapstick
comedy.

This class was not, however, immune to the virus of social
climbing. In Twelfth Night, you can see this in the character
of the Puritan steward Malvolio.

Missing from the play, but growing in reality in
Shakespeare's time, is the middle class. This class, to which
Shakespeare himself belonged, did not appear too much in
literature yet. Stories tended to reflect the society of a
somewhat earlier world.

Moving freely among all the classes, both in the play and in
real life, was the fool. Most royal and many noble households
kept a fool (or clown) for entertainment. This was the court
jester, a term you may have heard. Natural fools were actual
idiots, kept for amusement. Wise fools, like Feste in this
play, were intelligent and witty.

Court fools occupied a special place in society. They could
move back and forth from the kitchen to the king's chamber.
Some even accompanied their noble employers on state occasions.
Frequently they were allowed far more license of speech than
would be permitted anyone else.

Although the idea of hierarchy, of an order in nature
reflected in the social order, was generally accepted in
Shakespeare's time, society was actually far more flexible than
it had been, and change could be seen everywhere. One change
that can be seen in Twelfth Night is in the attitude toward
romantic Courtly Love.

Popularized by the medieval troubadours, the point of Courtly
Love was that it was never consummated. The lover devoted
himself to a beloved who, for some reason, could never be his.
What was important was the exquisite suffering of the lover as
he dedicated himself to the unobtainable.

In Twelfth Night, Orsino obviously sees himself as a courtly
lover. Olivia as well, in her extravagant devotion to her dead
brother, is indulging herself in romantic notions. In contrast
are Viola and Sebastian, the honest and practical brother and