Twelfth Night – "Do you regard Twelfth Night simply as a lighthearted festive comedy, or do you feel it contains more serious themes and issues?"
             The first known performance of Twelfth Night was on the 2nd February 1602, which is in fact Candlemas Day. It was a traditional festival at that time. The Elizabethans allowed time for fun and festivals to break up their long hard winters. The majority of the Elizabethans also believed in the "Lord of Misrule" and they were quite happy to do as they willed at certain times of the year to let misrule preside over the normal state of order. This echoes the very essence of the play as Twelfth Night is certainly about letting misrule appear greater in stature to controlled behaviour and the normal state of order.
             Twelfth Night is full of moments that contain a very lighthearted atmosphere and this is expressed through both the main and the subplots. The main source of comedy throughout the main plot is between the complete and utter confusion of the four main characters Olivia, Orsino, Viola and Sebastian. Although Sebastian does not feature very prominently in the play, the element of confusion between the characters would cease to exist without him in the play. Viola's dual identity is the main source of confusion in the play and also one of the main sources of comedy. Dramatic irony makes this overall humorous as we, the audience know that both Sebastian and Viola are twins while the characters do not have a clue what is going on. Humour is created in the main plot by a number of different things. For instance, the entanglement of the main quartet's lives, conversation's at cross purposes, uninformed same sex relationships (Cesario and Orsino, even though Cesario is actually a female, Orsino does not know this) are all certainly humorous aspects used by Shakespeare throughout the main plot.
             In the case of the subplot of Twelfth Night there are m...