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SEXUAL AMBIGUITY

Leonard F. Manheim (essay date 1964)

SOURCE: "The Mythical Joys of Shakespeare, or, What You Will," in Shakespeare Encomium, edited by Anne Paolucci, The City College, 1964, pp. 100-12.

[In the following essay, Manheim gives a psychoanalytic treatment of Twelfth Night, contending that the play is "an oedipal comedy written from the viewpoint of the father. "]

Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy.
       A Midsummer Night's Dream V.i.18-20

Will will fulfill the treasure of thy love …
                                                   Sonnet 136

I offer an interpretation of Twelfth Night based on accepted Shakespearean...

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1. Introduction
2. Overviews
3. Appearance Vs. Reality
4. Relation To Elizabethan Culture
5. Sexual Ambiguity
6. Further Reading
7. Copyright