Sex and Gender in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Or What You Will

The term ‘sex’ distinguishes between male and female through biological and physiological attributes [1], whereas ‘gender’ denotes a social organisation between the sexes, with masculine and feminine behaviour a matter of culture rather than biology – “a social category imposed on a sexed body” [2]. During the period of the English Renaissance, “there remained a widespread conviction that women were unsuited to wield power over men” [3],  and the “capacity for rational thought [was perceived] as exclusively male; women…were led only by their passions” [4]. Consequently, this translated to the position of the sexes within the education system, with men focused on the “arts of rhetoric and warfare” [5] and women on the “virtues of silence and good housekeeping” [6]. Women who expressed a desire to exert power and dominance over another individual were “condemned as a grotesque and dangerous aberration” [7] but such characteristics received approval if observed in men. This essay argues that Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will – through the themes of deception, excess and revelry – positions itself as a microcosm of society vis-à-vis sex and gender during the Elizabethan period, challenging normative archetypes of male and female which have been briefly defined above, intimating the presence of ‘subaltern’ patterns of behaviour and norms. 

Conventional archetypes of male behaviour and relationships during the Elizabethan period are challenged through the thematic exploration of excess in the presentation of Sebastian and Antonio. Despite Sebastian’s repeated repudiations of Antonio’s offers to accompany the former on his “determinate voyage” [8] to the “Count Orsino’s court” [9], Antonio remains obstinate despite “[having] many enemies in Orsino’s court” [10] for he “[adores Sebastian] so / That danger shall seem sport, and [he] will go” [11]. Antonio’s fidelity to Sebastian is clearly demonstrated in prioritising the latter’s wellbeing over his own personal security. The transition from prose to blank verse following Sebastian’s exit from the scene, coupled with the consonance of the ‘o’ vowel and sibilance of the ‘s’ consonant in the closing couplet affirms Antonio’s devotion to Sebastian in its tonal shift. Further, the utilisation of religious allusions in bidding “the gentleness of all the gods go with [Sebastian]” [12] and the suggestion of “murder” [13] for love underscores the intensity of Antonio’s affections for Sebastian and pushes fidelity into the paradigm of excess, which is suggestive of extant homoerotic tensions between both men. This is further evinced when Antonio encounters Viola disguised as Cesario and mistakes her for Sebastian – his engagement in a swordfight on her behalf leads to his capture, and the confusion which ensues as he demands for his purse leads him to accuse ‘Sebastian’ of “[doing] good feature shame” [14]. Referencing Sebastian’s physical beauty is highly suggestive of the existence of homoerotic attraction and intent from Antonio – by appropriating the theory of the ‘male gaze’ vis-à-vis scopophilia, which refers to the “primordial wish for pleasurable looking” [15] between characters in film, and observing the proxemics and reciprocity of the interactions between Antonio and Sebastian through Gorrie’s 1980 production of Twelfth Night, the existence of homoerotic tensions become evident. While “same-sex desire…would ordinarily have [been] ruled out of bounds” [16] during this period of the English Renaissance, the relationship between Sebastian and Antonio may be perceived as occupying a liminal and ambiguous position on the “potential unbrokenness of a continuum between homosocial and homosexual” [17], thus shielding Twelfth Night from censure and suppression, and signifies that the relationship shared between Sebastian and Antonio is indicative of the presence of ‘subaltern’ patterns of behaviour and norms vis-à-vis sex and gender during the English Renaissance. 

Antonio misconstruing Cesario as Sebastian is intrinsic of a core element in the thrust of Twelfth Night’s dramatic structure – that of deception and disguise. Through this, Shakespeare engages with the ineffectiveness of Elizabethan archetypes of men and women, explicating its failure to incorporate alternative patterns of behaviour apropos sex and gender. “Women did not perform on the English public stage” [18] during the Elizabethan period, and “trained adolescent boys [through]…gesture, makeup and above all dress [served] as a convincing representation of femininity” [19]. A sexualised and gendered dynamic is thus established in the performance of Viola, who undergoes two layers of deception and disguise – first in the male actor’s portrayal of himself as a female Viola, who then disguises herself as a “eunuch” [20] who is able to “sing / And speak to him in many sorts of music” [21]. The ‘suspension of disbelief’ is fundamental in the viewing of theatre, for “to become emotionally involved in a narrative, audiences must react as if the characters are real and the events are happening now” [22]. This permits an Elizabethan audience watching Twelfth Night in performance to temporarily accept a cross-dressed actor for the narrative’s sake, yet this double-layered deception suggests that the physiological features we attribute as characteristic of men and women is ambiguous, and do not necessarily belong in exacting, straitlaced categories. Orsino affirms this when he proclaims Cesario as the finest candidate to convey his messages of love to Olivia, for “Diana’s lip / Is not more smooth and rubious, thy small pipe / Is as the maiden’s organ, shrill and sound, / And all is semblative a woman’s part” [23]. Despite possessing a subconscious certainty of Cesario’s male sex – thus sanctioning him as servant in his court – Orsino professes admiration of Cesario’s feminine physical features, which he argues surpasses the classical figure of Diana. The sibilance of the ‘s’ consonant in ‘smooth’, ‘small’, ‘shrill’, ‘sound’ and ‘semblative’ serves to emphasise the discontinuity in normative categorisations of male and female physiology during the Elizabethan period, particularly that of pitch and tone of male and female voices, drawing the audience to an awareness of alternative interpretations of what constitutes ‘man’ and ‘woman’ corporeally. Indeed, further analysis of the proxemics of the interaction between Orsino and Cesario in the scene from Gorrie’s 1980 production of Twelfth Night corroborates the existence of homoerotic tensions, particularly through the channelling of the ‘male gaze’ in relation to scopophilia [24] and the physical handling of Cesario’s facial features.  The presentation of female characters by a man was a necessity during the period of the English Renaissance due to restrictions on female actors. Shakespeare, through the creation of sex and gender ambiguity in the interaction between Orsino and Cesario, has shrewdly utilised this detail to leave an Elizabethan audience in doubt about the archetypes of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ during the Elizabethan period, intimating the presence of marginal interpretations of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ during this period in Twelfth Night.

Further, Shakespeare defeats the pervasive belief in ‘biological determinism’ – that an individual’s sex delineates his or her patterns of behaviour – and challenges the normative Elizabethan archetypes of men and women through thematic explorations of excess and revelry in the characters of Twelfth Night. It is postulated that one’s behaviour and conduct do not conform to well-ordered categories: they are changeable and unique to different individuals. The male character of Orsino is introduced at the beginning of the play as inhabiting the archetype of the ‘Petrarchan lover’, characterised by “torments as [a] worshipper of a disdainful mistress” [25] – in Orsino’s instance, the Countess Olivia. He refers to “music [as] the food of love…That breathes upon a bank of violets, / Stealing and giving odour” [26]. His appeal to the auditory, gustatory, olfactory and kinetic faculties, coupled with the visual image of his forlorn figure lamenting the lack of reciprocity in affections from Olivia and the legion of “other lords” [27] in his company emphasises the intensity and magnitude of his emotions, which are evidently in excess.  The sudden, forceful and immediate declaration of how the music is “not so sweet now as it was before” [28] demonstrates Orsino’s erratic and volatile behaviour, which stands in diametric opposition to the behavioural norms of men during this period. Further, in waxing lyrical about Olivia’s perfection, Orsino compares himself to “a hart / And [his] desires, like fell and cruel hounds, / E’er since pursue [him]” [29]. The deployment of imagery which evoke the violence and aggression of hunting, coupled with the classical allusion to the “myth of Actaeon, who was turned into a stag and hunted by his own hounds for having seen the goddess [of the hunt] Diana naked” [30] aggrandises the intensity of his affections for Olivia and portrays himself as a victim of love. Orsino is thus exposed as a male individual who has ceded power and authority over to the female Olivia, hence subverting the “patriarchy…the institutionalised male dominance over women and children and the subordination of women in society in general” [31] which was considered normative during the Elizabethan period. 

Twelfth Night’s challenge upon normative Elizabethan archetypes of men and women through the themes of excess and revelry may be further observed in the characterisation of Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. The addition of the prefix ‘Sir’ to both their names positions them as respectable knights who subscribe to codes of chivalric conduct that govern their behaviour and manners [32], yet this is immediately undermined through aptronym, “a name regarded as humorously appropriate to a person’s profession or personal characteristics” [33] – the name ‘Belch’ carries connotations of vulgarity and offence, evoking “furious vociferation compared to the action of a volcano or cannon” [34], whereas ‘Aguecheek’, derived from the word ‘ague’, is reminiscent of illness which engenders foolishness and irrationality [35]. These definitions correspond to the behaviour of both men throughout the course of the play, with Sir Toby engaged in excessive “quaffing and drinking” [36] which leads to his disorderly and riotous behaviour. In a similar vein, Sir Andrew is presented as physically haggard and fatigued, which renders him emasculate.  This is exhibited in his display of fear and apprehension when manipulated into a swordfight with Cesario, declaring “Pox on’t!” [37] and “Plague on’t!” [38] upon being told by Sir Toby of Cesario’s sword handling abilities, which are non-existent. While attempting to project courage and strength in his outward disposition, the deployment of exclamatory oaths betray the fear within, and thus serves as a blatant and stark opposition to the expected behaviour which Elizabethan society has projected upon his sex, as determined by physiology. The character of Maria serves as a foil to these two characters, exuding coherence, confidence and the ability to stand her ground against what was believed to be the stronger sex. She displays this through her use of imperatives while rebuking Sir Toby for his disorderly behaviour [39], outwitting Sir Andrew in a play on words [40] and the creation of “obscure epistles of love” [41] which leads to the “[gulling of Malvolio] into a nayword and [made] him a common recreation” [42]– this required great intellect. The declaration “I know I can do it” [43], with its emphasis on the first-person pronoun ‘I’, is coupled with brevity and terseness and serves to emphasise the surety of self and autonomy she possesses, independent of the male sex, thus challenging the convention of dependency and reliance of the female upon the male as a matter of ‘biological determinism’ during the Elizabethan period. Separately, the portrayal of Cesario as a skilled and respectable sword-wielding knight is commentary on the fluidity and liminality of gendered concepts during the English Renaissance – while Cesario exudes the likeness of a Renaissance male figure through the prop of the sword, his metatheatrical aside of how “a little thing would make me tell them how much I lack of a man” [44] engenders a matrix through which the audience is prompted to reckon with how costume and dress are social constructs and fail to serve as reliable codifiers of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ during the Elizabethan period.

Finally, the character of Feste and his position as a liminal figure helps further the argument that Twelfth Night challenges conventional sex and gender definitions of the Elizabethan period through his provision of astute and occasionally comedic perceptions of other characters in the play. Following the performance of a song for Orsino and Cesario, Feste bids “the melancholy god protect [Orsino], and the tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal” [45]. The use of the term ‘melancholy god’ denotes an astrological reference to the planet of Saturn, which was believed to have “[controlled] the melancholic” [46] – a dig at the excessiveness of Orsino’s lamentations about the lack of reciprocity from Olivia to his professions of love, which further highlights the subversion of the patriarchy under the influence of the female. Additional figurative references to ‘taffeta’, which refers to “shot silk, whose colour changes with the angle of vision” [47] and the ‘opal’, “an iridescent gemstone that changes colour depending on the angle from which it is seen” [48] corresponds to Orsino’s tempestuous and forceful emotions, which run contrary to normative masculine behaviour during the English Renaissance, when men were thought of to possess more “heat…the source of strength…of mind, body or moral faculties” [49]. This perceptiveness may be further observed in his verbal sparring with Cesario, in which he remarks “who you are and what you would are out of my welkin” [50],  which is evocative of the theme of disguise and deception in Twelfth Night, seemingly suggestive of his awareness of Cesario’s true identity by comparing himself to her likeness. In addition, Feste’s position as the fool is further expressed through the songs of the play, adding to the carnivalesque and merry atmosphere underpinning the themes of deception, excess and revelry – these songs also serve, in their different contexts, to augment character traits and the themes mentioned above.

The theatrical stage of the English Renaissance could perhaps be perceived as a ‘third space’, removed from the ubiquitous expectations and realities of normative behaviours and mores, through which playwrights with a captive audience can reckon with the existence of alternate realities and voices. The mimesis of holy matrimony, which engenders the resolution of conflict at the close of Twelfth Night, absolves Shakespeare from being perceived as laying an attack on the accepted and established social order. Yet, upon closer textual and theoretical analyses, one recognises how the world of Twelfth Night, Or What You Will intimates for the audience the existence of alternate perceptions of sex and gender during the Elizabethan period. 

Notes 

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[1] OED Online, s.v “Sex, n.1”, accessed 6 March 2019, www.oed.com/view/Entry/176989. 
[2] Joan W. Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis”, The American Historical Review 91, no. 5 (1986): 1056.
[3] Stephen Greenblatt, “Introduction”, In The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume B, ed. Stephen Greenblatt (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2018), 13. 
[4] Greenblatt, 13.
[5] Greenblatt, 13.
[6] Greenblatt, 13.
[7] Greenblatt, 13.
[8] William Shakespeare, “Twelfth Night, Or What You Will”, in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume B, ed. Stephen Greenblatt (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2018), 756, II.1.9.
[9] Shakespeare, 757, II.1.38.
[10] Shakespeare, 757, II.1.40.
[11] Shakespeare, 757, II.1.42-43.
[12] Shakespeare, 757, II.1.39.
[13] Shakespeare, 757, II.1.31.
[14] Shakespeare, 786, III.4.352.
[15] Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, Screen 16, no. 3 (1975): 9.  
[16] Stephen Greenblatt, “Twelfth Night”, In The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume B, ed. Stephen Greenblatt (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2018), 739.
[17] Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, “Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire”, in The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, ed. Vincent Leitch, (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2018), 2280.
[18] Greenblatt, “Twelfth Night”, 739.
[19] Greenblatt, 739.
[20] Shakespeare, “Twelfth Night”, 744, I.2.54.
[21] Shakespeare, 744, I.2.55-56. 
[22] Daniel Chandler and Rod Munday, s.v "suspension of disbelief”, in A Dictionary of Media and Communication. Oxford University Press, January 2016. http://www.oxfordreference.com.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/view/10.1093/acref/9780191800986.001.0001/acref-9780191800986-e-2678. 
[23] Shakespeare, “Twelfth Night”, 748, I.4.31-34. 
[24] Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure”, 9.
[25] Chris Baldick, “Petrarchan”, in The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms.
Oxford University Press, January 2015. http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198715443.001.0001/acref-9780198715443-e-868. 
[26] Shakespeare, “Twelfth Night”, 741-742, I.1.1-7.
[27] Shakespeare, 741, I.1.
[28] Shakespeare, 742, I.1.8.
[29] Shakespeare, 742, I.1.20-2
[30] Shakespeare, 742n3
[31] Anthony Fletcher, Gender, Sex and Subordination in England: 1500-1800, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), xv.
[32] Alex Davis, “Introduction”, in Chivalry and Romance in the English Renaissance (Cambridge: Boydell and Brewer,  2003), 3.
[33] OED Online, s.v "Aptronym, n.", accessed 7 March 2019. www.oed.com/view/Entry/249202. 
[34] OED Online, s.v "Belch, v.", accessed 7 March 2019. www.oed.com/view/Entry/17329.
[35] OED Online, s.v "Ague, n.", accessed 11 March 2019. www.oed.com/view/Entry/4236. 
[36] Shakespeare, “Twelfth Night”, 745, I.3.13
[37] Shakespeare, 784, III.4.267.
[38] Shakespeare, 784, III.4.270.
[39] Shakespeare, 744, I.3.1-8.
[40] Shakespeare, 746, I.3.59-75.
[41] Shakespeare, 762, II.3.143.
[42] Shakespeare, 761, II.3.125-126.
[43] Shakespeare, 761, II.3.127. 
[44] Shakespeare, 785, III.4.286-287.
[45] Shakespeare, 764, II.4.72-74.
[46] Shakespeare, 764n7.
[47] Shakespeare, 764n8.
[48] Shakespeare, 764n9.
[49] Fletcher, “Gender”, xvi.  
[50] Shakespeare, “Twelfth Night”, 772, III.1.56-57. 

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