This study will provide an analysis of Act III, Scene 1, from Shakespeare's comedy Twelfth Night. The analysis will be based on the view that Shakespeare has no other intention in this scene than to show the delightful silliness of love and of being in the state of love. The bewildering and light-hearted complexity of characters and roles and gender-crossing in the play is exemplified in this scene, and the reader or audience member is meant by Shakespeare to take nothing from the scene but a dizzying sense of fun and play with love and words. Reality and illusion are mixed and mired with one another, but there is nothing serious about the mixture. Shakespeare has some of the characters brook serious subjects, but immediately the farce is re-established and seriousness is snatched away for the sake of silliness. Even as Olivia declares her love and longing for the servant whom she believes to be a man, the reader has long ago come to be aware that nothing is truly at risk here, except for the character of Malvolio who represents evil in the play. This scene, like the entire play, is so light-hearted that even at the most apparently anguished moment of a character such as the lovestruck Olivia the reader takes delight because he or she knows that all will inevitably end well, except for the malevolent Malvolio.
Viola, disguised as a man, and specifically as Cesario, Count Orsino's servant, enters Olivia's garden with the drum-playing clown attached to Olivia. The two embark on mind-entangling wordplay which leaves Viola appreciating the clown's wisdom disguised as folly.
The exchange between Viola and the clown highlights Shakespeare's playful theme that nothing is as it seems. Viola is hiding the fact that she is a woman, while the clown is hiding the fact that he is truly wise, or at least hiding the fact that he is not the fool he plays. No meaning is accepted that cannot be misunderstood or misinterpreted. Viola greets t...