Twelfth Night has long delighted Shakespearian audiences with its shifting moods – now melancholy, now lyrical, now joyous, now farcical – making it one of the most popular of his comedies. This edition, edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex, forms part of the Wordsworth Classics’ Shakespeare’s Series, presenting a newly-edited sequence of William Shakespeare’s works whose textual editing takes account of recent scholarship while offering a careful reappraisal.
Mistaken identities and unrequited love drive the main plot: Viola, disguised as a young man, attracts both Olivia and Orsino, while her brother Sebastian discovers he is loved not just by Antonio but by Olivia too. Alongside this, a comic sub-plot sees Sir Toby Belch and his companions outwit the vain Malvolio, subjecting him to ludicrous humiliation. Beneath its broad comedy, Twelfth Night playfully interrogates gender roles and sexual ambiguity.
ISBN 13: 9781853260100
Author: William Shakespeare
