Twelfth Night

Named for the twelfth night after Christmas, the end of the Christmas season, Twelfth Night plays with love and power. The Countess Olivia, a woman with her own household, attracts Duke (or Count) Orsino. Two other would-be suitors are her pretentious steward, Malvolio, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek.

Onto this scene arrive the twins Viola and Sebastian; caught in a shipwreck, each thinks the other has drowned. Viola disguises herself as a male page and enters Orsino's service. Orsino sends her as his envoy to Olivia—only to have Olivia fall in love with the messenger. The play complicates, then wonderfully untangles, these relationships.

Shakespeare probably wrote Twelfth Night in 1601–02; its earliest recorded performance was in February 1602. It appears in the 1623 First Folio. Sources include Plautus's Menaechmi and "Apolonius and Silla” in Barnabe Riche's His Farewell to the Military Profession.

Productions at the Folger

• Twelfth Night (Folger Theatre, 2013)
• Twelfth Night (Folger Theatre, 2003)

Early editions

First Folio

LUNA: First Folio: Y2r - Z6r

Hamnet: STC 22273 Fo. 1 no. 68

Second Folio

LUNA: Second Folio: Y2r - Z6v

Hamnet: STC 22274 Fo. 2 no. 07

Modern editions

Twelfth Night can be read online with Folger Digital Texts and purchased from Simon and Schuster. The play can also be purchased in Three Comedies, a collection that also includes A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Taming of the Shrew.

Hamnet link to Folger Edition: PR2753 .M6 2004 copy 2 v.35

Notes

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