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Jonsonian Elements in the Comic Underplot of Twelfth Night

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Paul Mueschke  and
Jeannette Fleisher
Jeannette Fleisher
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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Extract

The present study purposes to establish a direct relationship between the comic underplot in Twelfth Night and the Jonsonian comic method as first developed in Every Man in His Humour and Every Man out of His Humour. Shakespeare's name appears first in the list of actors for the former play in the Jonson Folio (1616). This is almost the only indubitable instance of Shakespeare's acting, attested by written evidence on the authority of Jonson rather than based on tradition or hearsay. His thorough familiarity with this play is, consequently, a certainty, and the production of Every Man out of His Humour by his company in the following year is sufficient evidence that his knowledge of both plays was intimate and detailed.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , September 1933 , pp. 722 - 740
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1933

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References

1 Every Man in His Humour was produced and acted by the Lord Chamberlain's Company in 1598 and Every Man out of His Humour by the same company in 1599. The date of Twelfth Night may now with considerable certainty be placed not earlier than the winter of 1600–01. As T. W. Baldwin, Organization and Personnel of the Shakespearean Company (1927) and A. K. Gray, “Robert Armine, the Foole,” PMLA, xlii, 673 ff., have pointed out, Robert Armine succeeded Kempe in the Chamberlain's Company in the spring of 1600, and there can be little doubt that the parts of Touchstone and Feste were written largely with a view to the peculiar capabilities of the new addition to the company.

2 Shakespeare's name appears also in the actor list for Jonson's Sejanus (1603).

3 Used throughout this paper in the sense of a “humour” character.

4 “No one has yet found Shakespeare a debtor to any one for Malvolio.” Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch and J. D. Wilson, Twelfth Night (Cambridge, 1930), Introd., p. xiv.

5 Notably V. A. Wilson, Society Women of Shakespeare's Time (1924) and Sir Israel Gollancz, in M. Luce, Rich's Apolonius and Siila (1923), pp. 95–96.

6 Ben Jonson (Mermaid Series), i, Preface, p. xliii.

7 L. Hotson, Shakespeare vs. Shallow (1931) has proved conclusively, in our opinion, that the Merry Wives dates early in 1597. It is highly probable, therefore, that the treatment of Falstaff is influenced not so much by the humour trend as by the traditions of Italian comedy.

8 English Elements in Jonson's Early Comedy (1911), p. 154, n. 1.—That the conception of the humour type sprang full-fledged from the brain of Jonson in the year 1598 has been thoroughly disproved by Baskervill's exhaustive study; but Jonson's particular contribution in enriching and popularizing the method is indisputable.

9 See particularly K. M. Lynch, Social Mode of Restoration Comedy (1926), Chap. 2, pp. 13–19. 10 Induction to Every Man out of His Humour.

11 The best example of the humour of eccentricity is Morose in Epicoene. The fully-developed humour of eccentricity finds no parallel in Twelfth Night and need therefore concern us no further.

12 “What is this humour?” … “Marry, I'll tell thee what it is (as 'tis generally received in these days): it is a monster bred in a man by self-love and affectation, and fed by folly.” Every Man in His Humour, iii, 1. All quotations from this play have been taken from the earlier Italianate version of the play, the only one which Shakespeare knew, but the names of characters have been retained from the more familiar Anglicized version which appeared in the 1616 folio. The later revisions are chiefly verbal; all changes of act and scene numbering, however, are indicated in the footnotes to facilitate reference.

13 See P. Mueschke, Prototypes of Restoration Wits and Would-Bees in Ben Jonson's Reatlisic Comedy (1929), an unpublished doctoral dissertation.

14 In the Anglicized version of Every Man in his Humour, ii, 1.

15 Ibid., iv, 1.

16 In the presentation of his humour characters, Jonson employed the character sketch, a type of delineation at least as old as Theophrastus, which had already become established as a convention in English literature. Jonson uses it to sketch briefly and pointedly the essentials of a character's humour or particular affectations, almost invariably before his appearance or on his first appearance on the stage, his purpose being obviously to supply the audience with a correct preconception of the nature of the gull, that there may be no mistaking the author's satire. Shakespeare had already to a certain extent used this method, as in the case of Don Armado in Love's Labour's Lost, but he employs it fully in the presentation of Andrew. He uses it also with the fop who annoys Hotspur on the battlefield, in Henry IV, Part I, and with Osric, in Hamlet.

17 Matthew is liberally inoculated with the spirit of bravery by Bobadill's fencing lessons, but his stomach for quarrelling is rapidly dissipated at the prospect of actual danger from Downright's cudgel, and he flees ignominiously.

18 Cf. Maria's characterization of Andrew with Stephen's equally boastful cowardice, as revealed in the following conversation before and after Brainworm's entrance:

Know. Tut, now it's too late to look on it, put it up, put it up.

Step. Well, I will not put it up, but by God's foot, an e'er I meet him— … Whoreson, coney-catching rascal; oh, I could eat the very hilts for anger.

Know. A sign you have a good ostrich stomach, cousin.

Step. A stomach? would I had him here, you should see an I had a stomach. … (Enter Brainworm.) Oh, God's lid, by your leave, do you know me, sir?

Brain. Ay, sir, I know you by sight.

Step. You sold me a rapier, did you not?

Brain. Yes, marry did I, sir.

Step. You said it was a Toledo, ha?

Brain. True, I did so.

Step. But it is none.

Brain. No, sir, I confess it, it is none.

Step. Gentlemen, bear witness, he has confest it. By God's lid, an you had not confest it—(ii, 3) (iii, 1, in the Anglicized version). See also Stephen's boasted valor and its equally rapid evaporation in the servant incident (i, 1).

19 This incident is later developed by Jonson with extraordinarily good comic effect in Epicoene.

20 iii, 1, in the Anglicized version.

21 See also Andrew's imitative repetition, probably corrupted in the process, of the Clown's words: “Thou wast in very gracious fooling last night when thou spok'st of Pigrogromitus, of the Vapians passing the equinoctial of Queubus.” (ii, 3). Admiration of high-sounding words not native to their own vocabularies (and in this case obviously misunderstood) is common to Jonson's gulls as well as to Andrew. Cf. Matthew's use of “bastinado” for “cudgel” (due here, of course, to Italianate affectation.)

22 iii, 1, in the Anglicized version.

23 The Elder Knowell's reprimand to Stephen indicates that his foolish nephew, like Andrew, has frequently been fleeced by his flatterers:

Learn to be wise, and practice how to thrive,

That I would have you do, and not to spend

Your crowns on every one that humours you: (i, 1).

Even the impoverished Matthew contributes his two shillings to the exchequer of an even more indigent, though superior gull, Bobadill.

24 Cf. the attractions Fastidius Brisk wishes to exhibit to the lady he is attempting to court:

Fast. By this hand, I'd spend twenty pound my vaulting horse stood here now, she might see me do but one trick.

Maci. Why, does she love activity?

Cin. Or, if you had but your long stockings on, to be dancing a galliard as she comes by.

Fast. Ay, either, O, these stirring humours make ladies mad with desire, (iii, 3).

26 Cf. Stephen's “I think my leg would show well in a silk hose.” (i, 2.)

26 F. E. Schelling, Complete Plays of Ben Jonson (Everyman ed.), i, xii, recognizes that Malvolio is “conceived in the spirit of humours,” but leaves his observation unsubstantiated.

27 See M. P. Tilley, “The Organic Unity of Twelfth Night,” PMLA, xxix, 550 ff.

28 See p. 723, n. 12, infra.

29 Quoted in M. Luce, loc. cit.

30 It is notable that Fastidius' boasted confidence in his mistress's favors, based equally on airy nothingness, finds expression also in their alleged commendation of his apparel:

“O, I have been graced by them beyond all aim of affection; this is her garter my dagger hangs in: and they do so commend and approve my apparel, with my judicious wearing of it, it's above wonder. (ii, 2.)”

81 F. S. Boas, Shakespere and His Predecessors (1902), p. 323.

82 It may be interesting to note that Maria's letter advises Malvolio to put himself “into the trick of singularity.” His punctilious observation of her advice makes Malvolio singular indeed, as Puntarvolo's overactive imagination has made him. Singularity, in both instances, is merely the result of pride in the display of affectation.