ISBN: 9780217431071

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustra… More...

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ... it was one of the marriages made in heaven, and happy to the end. The earliest reference to Twelfth Night that has been found is in a manuscript diary of John Manningham, a member of the Middle Temple, which is preserved in the British Museum. The passage reads thus:-- Feb. 2,1601-2. At our feast, wee had a play called Twelve Night, or What You Will. Much like the Comedy of Errors, or Menechmi in Plautus; but most like and neere to that in Italian called In-ganni. A good practise in it to make the steward beleive his lady widdowe was in love with him, by counterfayting a letter as from his lady in generall tennes, telling him what shee liked best in him, and prescribing his gesture in smiling, his apparaile, etc., and then when he came to practise, making him beleive they tooke him to be mad. As the play is not in Meres''s list, we may infer that it was written between September, 1598, when that book appeared, and February, 1602. It is assigned by the majority of the critics to 1600 or 1601. There are two Italian plays entitled GF Inganni (The Deceits), published in the latter part of the 16th century, and containing incidents somewhat resembling those of Twelfth Night. In one of them the sister who assumes male apparel bears the name Cesare, which may have suggested Shakespeare''s Cesario. A third Italian play, GV Ingannati, has even a closer likeness to Twelfth Night, and in its induction we find the name Malevolti, of which Malvolio may be a variation. It has been recently discovered (see the preface to Furness''s New Variorum edition of the play) that a Latin translation of this Italian drama, under the title of Lcelia (the name of the heroine), was performed at Queen''s College, Cambridge, in 1590, and again in 1598. Shakespeare''s small... William James Rolfe, Books, Biography and Memoir, A Life of William Shakespeare Books>Biography and Memoir, General Books LLC<