SHAKESPEARE was one of the most famous renaissance writers. His play "Twelfth Night" was written during the English renaissance and maybe overlapped with the creation of the great tragedy Hamlet.
The aim of this paper is to analyse in what way Shakespeare presented the characters of the play. Central to this discussion are the contemporary understandings of the human nature as well as the psychological assumptions concerning the mental distraction of people. It is undisputable that CICERO and his work "De officiis" had a great impact on the English renaissance humanists.
The term “humanism” is a translation of the Italian word ‘umanista’ which denotes someone who teaches humanae literae. WELLS rightly claims that “the ruling ambition of the humanists was to recover the values of classical civilisation”. Their ideal form of government was “a just society, ruled by a wise and responsible oligarchy”. And “a humanist was someone who made it his business to understand humankind”. So now the audience of Twelfth Night is confronted with an unordered society that consists of characters that absolutely lack the renaissance ideal of how humans should be. It is proposed to show how SHAKESPEARE manages to reorder the mad state Illyria – the setting of the play. Moreover the process of metamorphosing into ideal humans in the sense of the Renaissance understanding will be traced. Since there are reams of publications on SHAKESPEARE’S works a choice of some of them had to be carried out. ROBIN WELLS’ monograph Shakespeare’s Humanism served as a basis for this paper. WELLS portrays a very detailed image of what concerned the English renaissance humanists. Moreover he classifies SHAKESPEARE and his plays in the contemporary world-view. In order to reconstruct the nature of melancholy and madness ROBERT BURTON’S monograph "The Anatomy of Melancholy" was consulted. In this way it was possible to develop an understanding of the renaissance notion on mental derangement. BURTON’S examinations of this topic will be checked against SHAKESPEARE’S way of presenting mental illnesses. In a final step the question will be answered in how far SHAKESPEARE must have been acquainted with the disease pattern of distracted subjects.
Inhaltsverzeichnis (Table of Contents)
- Introduction
- Renaissance key concepts
- Humanism: The nature of the Renaissance figure
- Elizabethan Madness and Melancholia - contemporary understanding
- The Renaissance concept of love
- Petrarchism
- Anti-Petrarchism
- Acting by emotions - madness, melancholia and lovesickness
- Twelfth Night
- Duke Orsino and Olivia
- Viola and Malvolio
- Conclusion
Zielsetzung und Themenschwerpunkte (Objectives and Key Themes)
This paper analyzes how Shakespeare presents the characters in his play Twelfth Night, focusing on the contemporary understanding of human nature and the psychological assumptions regarding mental distraction. The paper explores the influence of Cicero's work De officiis on English Renaissance humanists and how Shakespeare portrays the characters' lack of the Renaissance ideal of human behavior within the play's setting of Illyria. The paper aims to demonstrate how Shakespeare reorders this chaotic society and how characters transform into ideal humans, according to the Renaissance understanding.
- The impact of Cicero's De officiis on Renaissance humanism
- The Renaissance ideal of human nature
- The portrayal of mental illness in Elizabethan England
- The role of love in the Renaissance
- Shakespeare's depiction of social order and transformation in Twelfth Night
Zusammenfassung der Kapitel (Chapter Summaries)
- The introduction establishes the paper's focus on the relationship between Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and Renaissance concepts of human nature, mental illness, and love. The paper draws upon the works of Cicero, Burton, and Wells to contextualize Shakespeare's play within the intellectual landscape of the English Renaissance.
- The chapter on Renaissance key concepts explores the core principles of humanism, particularly Cicero's theory of the four cardinal virtues: prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice. This chapter examines the concept of dual nature within human beings, emphasizing the importance of self-knowledge in controlling baser instincts and contributing to the public good.
Schlüsselwörter (Keywords)
Key concepts explored in this paper include Renaissance humanism, Elizabethan mental illness, the anatomy of human nature, Cicero's De officiis, Petrarchism, Anti-Petrarchism, and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.
- Arbeit zitieren
- Toni Rudat (Autor:in), 2010, Twelfth Night, and the Renaissance Idea of Man, München, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/152461
