CRITICISM

Berlin, Normand. “Traffic of Our Stage: Shakespeare in Stratford.” The Massachusetts Review 40, no. 1 (spring 1999): 137-53.

Reviews the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Twelfth Night at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. The critic finds the production, directed by Adrian Noble, to be unmoving and palatable at best.

Brown, John Russell. “Twelfth Night.” In Shakespeare's Dramatic Style, pp. 132-59. London: Heinemann, 1970.

Examines the dramatic style Shakespeare used in Twelfth Night, demonstrating the ways in which Shakespeare employed simple lyricism as well as artistic prose dialogue.

Forbes, Lydia. “What You Will?” Shakespeare Quarterly 13, no. 4 (autumn 1962): 475-85.

Explores the ways in which productions of Twelfth Night can fully explore the play's potential, and asserts that the entire text, complete and in the order in which Shakespeare composed it, must be utilized by a production's director.

Hotson, Leslie. “Punning in Feste's Final Song.” In Twentieth Century Interpretations of Twelfth Night: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Walter N. King, pp. 105-08. 1955. Reprint. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968.

Studies Feste's song, delivered at the end of Twelfth Night, and comments on its obscene implications.

Klein, Alvin. “Tangled Sex and Identity in Twelfth Night.” New York Times (23 July 2000): NJ.13.

Reviews the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival's production of Twelfth Night, directed by Joseph Discher. In Klein's appraisal, the production failed at both comedic and romantic interpretations of the play.

Lampert-Gréaux, Ellen, David Johnson, and David Barbour. “Delirious Illyria.” Twentieth Century Interpretations 32, no. 9 (October 1998): 64-7.

Reviews in detail the stage design of the production of Twelfth Night directed by Nicholas Hytner and designed by Bob Crowley.

Musgrove, S. “Feste's Dishonesty: An Interpretation of Twelfth Night I.v.1-30.” Shakespeare Quarterly 21, no. 2 (spring 1970): 194-96.

Analyzes a passage of Twelfth Night (I.v.1-30) between Maria and Feste and offers an interpretation of the text that reveals Feste's nature and the dangerous potential of his wit.

Smith, Peter J. “M.O.A.I.: ‘What Should That Alphabetical Position Portent?’ An Answer to the Metaphoric Malvolio.” Renaissance Quarterly 51, no. 4 (winter 1998): 1199-224.

Attempts to answer the riddle concerning the initials “M.O.A.I.” presented in Act II, scene v, of Twelfth Night. Smith surveys solutions suggested by other critics and employs Renaissance semantics in order to propose his own reading of the scene.

Williams, Porter Jr. “Mistakes in Twelfth Night and Their Resolution: A Study in Some Relationships of Plot and Theme.” In Twentieth Century Interpretations of Twelfth Night: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Walter N. King, pp. 31-44. 1955. Reprint. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968.

Examines the mistakes made by the protagonists of Twelfth Night, maintaining that the errors these characters make are not only part of the overt mechanisms of the plot, but also serve to reveal aspects of the characters' psychological motivations as well as the play's underlying themes of deception and love.