Comedy

Abstract

One can sympathise to some extent with the eighteenth-century annotator of Bell’s Edition of Shakespeare, who wrote of some of the repartee in II iii: ‘There is very little doubt but Shakespeare had some meaning, in this scene; however to us it plainly appears, that he took uncommon pains to conceal the greatest part of it.’ The obscurity of the verbal jokes was probably one reason why Feste’s role was of comparatively little importance in the eighteenth century, whereas Malvolio’s, which depends much more on situation than on language, dominated the play. Nowadays, one can read the play in heavily annotated editions which explain all but a few of the jokes, but the director still has to decide what to do with them in performance. This decision will have an important effect on the tone of the play. If Feste’s jokes cannot be made funny, he must be interpreted as an unsuccessful, or unhappy, clown — or as something totally different.