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  • Essay / Festivity in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night - 1372

    The perfect life that constitutes the routine of Illyrian citizens depicts a society in which pleasure and personal gain are the top priority. Shakespeare mocks the passivity of the Illyrian way of life to explain to the audience that the excess of such festivities has negative side effects such as ego and lack of true love. It expresses that the search for expression and truth in itself arouses enjoyment. Sir Aguecheek reflects a person's uncertainty through lack of self-confidence and desire to openly reveal one's true self by lamenting, "Is this a world in which to hide virtues?" (1.3.131). While discovering aesthetic and emotional mysteries, the Illyrians discover that sport prevents them from truly enjoying and loving. The play follows the audience to motivate them to broadcast their feelings and express their passion as a "place of growth and self-discovery" (Logan 223) and to achieve true happiness by getting rid of excessive and meaningless pleasure . In constructing an ideal universe, Shakespeare attributes the complex symbolism of the characters in the utopian context to the individual desire for celebration, lust, and pleasure present in human culture, which in excess is not beneficial. Shakespeare “evokes to his audience a recognition of the limits of celebration by abolishing such limits in the stage world of Illyria” (Logan 223). Referring to the last night of Christmas celebrations, the title of Twelfth Night itself in its opening scenes considers Illyria as a world of privilege and leisure. According to Goddard “Illyria is a counterfeit Elysium” (302) where enjoyment evokes pleasure but not happiness and attraction evokes lust but not love. Illyria acts as a playground for revelry and limitless self in middle of paper......House Pub, 1987. Delahoyde, Micheal. “Twelfth Night or whatever you want.” Twelfth Night. Dr. Michael Delahoyde, nd Web. February 23, 2014.Garber, Marjorie. “Shakespeare as a fetish.” Shakespeare Quarterly: n. page. Print.Goddard, Harold C. The Meaning of Shakespeare. Flight. 1. Np: np, and Print.Logan, Thad Jenkins. “Twelfth Night: The Limits of Partying.” Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. Np: Rice University, 1982. 223-38. Flight. 22 Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900. Rep. in English Literature Studies, 1500-1900. Np: np, nd N. pag. Print.Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night. Np: np, nd Print.Summers, Joseph H. “The Masks of the Twelfth Night”. Kansas City University Review 22 (1955): 86-97. Twelfth night. Dartmouth, nd Web. February 23, 2014. Wells, Stanley. Shakespeare in the Theatre: An Anthology of Criticism. Oxford University Press, USA, 2000.