Fools and folly are widely used in comedy to create humour To what extent does this apply to Twelfth Night?

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Lewis Keen

“Fools and folly are widely used in comedy to create humour” To what   extent does this apply to Twelfth Night?

In this essay I will be exploring Twelfth Night and focusing on the extent at which folly is used to create humour. The word folly means "a silly person" or “one who uses folly for the entertainment of others” etc. In William Shakespeare’s comedy, Feste -licensed fool- the clown is not the only fool who is subject to foolery; others include Sir Andrew Aguecheek (natural fool), Malvolio who is exposed to be the natural fool and Sir Toby who is deemed to be the Lord of Misrule. Overall, fools and folly are widely used in Twelfth Night and form the basic plot.

In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Feste’s role in this Illyrian comedy is significant. Feste plays the role of a humble clown and is employed by Olivia’s father thus playing the role of the licensed fool of their household. Olivia states that Feste is “an allowed fool” meaning he is licensed to speak the truth of people around him in order to entertain others. This is also seen when Curio states to the duke that “Feste the jester…a fool that the Lady Olivia’s father took much pleasure in”. Even though Feste is employed to be foolish, when compared to the other characters he is deemed to be the wisest, wittiest and the most philosophical of all the characters. Viola echoes this by saying “This fellow’s wise enough to play the fool.” By having the role of a licensed fool, Festes main role is to speak to the truth. Comedy is achieved through the truthfulness of the character.  

           

 

The first true glimpses of folly in Twelfth Night are seen in Act 1 Scene 3. Sir Andrew serves as an excellent example of the idea of Satire which Shakespeare throughout the play uses to undermine the so called rich, upper class characters. Sir Toby encourages Sir Andrew to “accost” Maria, which translates as “chat her up” and Sir Andrew foolishly addresses Maria as “Good mistress accost”. Shakespeare interestingly uses satire but also comedy of manners to illustrate his feelings towards the rich and powerful. His intentions are clearly seen here for the rest of the play; he starts with a powerful character being made a fool of and also ends with Malvolio being made a fool of, not weaker characters like Maria (servant) feste (clown). In this area of the scene, the audience expects a prominent, smart character to emerge on stage due to the description given by Sir Toby: “Why, he has an income of three thousand ducats a year,” which again links to the idea of comedy of manners- ‘a plot revolving around greed’. Subsequently, Sir Andrew is a naïve, un-intelligent person who creates comedy and folly by miss-understanding Sir Toby. Knights in Shakespeare’s time would easily be able to gain respect through women due to it being an attractive occupation. However, Sir Andrew is the complete opposite and this allows the audience to laugh at how a character can be so different from the usual stereotype. Sir Andrew being so naïve and thinking that he can easily add Maria to his endless list of women creates dramatic irony, the audience know that Maria thinks very poorly of him yet on the other hand Sir Andrew being so un-intelligent still thinks he is a wonderful human being. Alternatively, this area of Act 1 could show that even though Sir Andrew is rather naïve, he still achieves because of the fact that Sir Toby mentions his “three thousand ducats a year” and Sir Andrew himself states to Maria that he is not “such an ass” and that he can keep his “hand dry,” this promotes the fact that when we wants to be, Sir Andrew can be smart and keep his “hand dry” which results in the audience weighing up what’s to come in the future for Sir Andrew. Ultimately, Sir Andrew fails to “woo” Olivia resulting in Sebastian marrying Olivia. Overall, this links back to the idea of comedy of manners and satire as both Sir Toby and Sir Andrew have been socially undermined with it being Sir Toby’s idea to set Andrew with Olivia and Sir Andrew failing in this quest.

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Feste who is employed to be funny and possibly ‘foolish’ is quite the opposite when compared with Sir Andrew. Feste is a philosophical, smart and witty character. In relevance to the question, a fool (feste) is employed to make people laugh yet there is no doubting that he comes across as anything but a fool. Shakespeare uses this character to highlight and contrast the frailties in the other characters such as Sir Andrew for example by allowing the natural fool to be the “natural wit” which is a very clever tool, the audience aren’t laughing at Feste being employed as ...

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