Twelfth Night, and other Epiphanies

When: Sunday, January 22, 2012, 1-4 p.m.

Where: American University's Bender Library, Room 306

Contact: (see below)

Next on the Shakespeare Readers' schedule is Twelfth Night (which I inexplicably want to spell with a ph, perhaps because it was written to celebrate the Eve of the Epiphany and all).

The Epiphany is the realization that the Christmas holiday is over and it's time to take down the Christmas lights. However, as modern times have lengthened the Christmas holiday forwards and backwards, we now celebrate at least through Super Bowl Sunday, which this season falls on February 5, 2012, certainly within the Twelfth Night reading-relevancy parameters.

But I digress.

Harold Bloom writes of Twelfth Night, or, What You Will that "everyone except the superb clown Feste is a zany." The duke, Orsino, is "loony," and heroines Viola and Olivia are "charming screwballs" (p. 205). And yet, he observes, "Wild with laughter, Twelfth Night is nevertheless almost always on the edge of violence" (p. 211).

But of course there are a lot of great lines to be read, like:

If music be the food of love, play on!

...

Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.

and

God give them wisdom that have it, and those that are fools, let them use their talents.

Let There Be Links:

* Shakespeare Readers complete 2011-2012 schedule is the first post of this Blog.

* Paperback and Kindle editions of Twelfth Night from Folger are available from Amazon.com.

* Complete text of the Arden edition is available from MIT's Shakespeare project.

* Harold Bloom's insightful text Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (in cloth or paperback) is available from Amazon.com.

* Tickets for the Super Bowl (to be held in Indianapolis) are available from StubHub. I understand it is also televised and will be streamed online for the first time, on February 5, a full month after the real Twelfth Night and two weeks after our reading. I hope you are as relieved as I am that we won't have a scheduling conflict!

* And apparently you can also stream at least one full-length film version of Twelfth Night on YouTube.

In Bard We Trust,

Cindy

To RSVP for this reading, please send me an e-mail at hosaajoy 'at' gmail.com

ETA, Please note that the readings for Richard III (April 8) and Taking of the Shrew (May 13) will be rescheduled ASAP to avoid conflicts with Easter Sunday and Mother's Day. Oops! Please check back later at Shakespeare Readers 2011-2012 Season.