Essay on Twelfth Night: A Gender-Bending Journey -- Twelfth Night essa

Twelfth Night: A Gender-Bending Journey      Ã‚   Shakespeare enjoyed writing passionate plays about young lovers, but, after a while, the formula became exhausted and the Bard was forced to dig deeper, creatively speaking. Twelfth Night is an example of a Shakespearean love tale with a slight twist to keep things interesting. This play was the â€Å"Tootsie† of its time. Twelfth Night takes the audience on a gender-bending journey, while maintaining all the elements of true love throughout. At one point, Olivia wears a disguise in order to take on the traditionally male role of wooing her romantic interest, Cesario, who is also disguised. Although Olivia flirts with Cesario and tells him that his â€Å"scorn† only reveals his hidden love, she is mistaken. Her misinterpretation of Cesario’s manner is one of many problems contained within the drama. Cesario’s true gender, Olivia’s active pursuit of him/her, and the ambiguity of words with double meanings in this passage threaten to turn who lesome, romantic conquest on its head, or as Olivia says â€Å"turn night to noon† (139).      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Perhaps the bigge... ... Erasmus, Desiderius. In Praise of Folly. Trans. Hoyt Hopewell Hudson, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1970. Hotson, Leslie. Shakespeare's Motley. New York: Oxford University Press, 1952. Potter, Lois. Twelfth Night: Text & Performance. London: Macmillan, 1985. Shakespeare, William. The Norton Shakespeare. Edited Stephen Greenblatt et al. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997. Zijderveld, Anton J. Reality in a Looking-Glass: Rationality through an Analysis of Traditional Folly. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982.