Twelfth Night (Vol. 34) | Walter N. King (essay date 1968)
Walter N. King (essay date 1968)
SOURCE: "Shakespeare and Parmenides: Metaphysics of Twelfth Night," in Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. VIII, No. 2, Spring, 1968, pp. 283-306.
[In the following excerpt, King focuses on the character of Feste, comparing his ambiguous comments to those made by the sixth-century Greek philosopher Parmenides regarding "what is " and "what is not. "]
Recurrent themes are by now such a recognized feature of Shakespearian drama that we are perhaps in danger of underrating them. And when one begins to reconsider Shakespeare's use of the most recurrent theme of them all, the contrast between the ideal and the real (between what the mind comprehends discursively or intuitively and what it apprehends by means of the senses), this caveat seems especially apropos. For everyone knows that Shakespeare manipulates this theme in play after play throughout his career, and it all begins to seem...
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