What you want

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Orsino and Viola by Frederick Richard Pickersgill

What you want ( early New English Twelfe Night, Or what you will ) is a comedy by William Shakespeare . The work is about the unfortunate love of Duke Orsino for Countess Olivia and the fate of the twin pair Viola and Sebastian, separated by a shipwreck. Shakespeare wrote the play around 1601. The earliest evidence of a performance is found in a diary entry by John Manningham, who saw the piece on February 2, 1602 in London's Middle Temple . It was first printed in the folio edition of 1623. Shakespeare primarily used the prose romance Of Apolonius and Silla as the direct template for the main plotfrom the collection Riche his Farewell to Militarye Profession by Barnabe Riche from 1581, which in turn takes up motifs from Matteo Bandello's novella (1554) and François de Belleforest's Histoires tragiques (1571). There are also striking similarities with Italian comedies such as the anonymously written Gl'ingannati of the Accademia degli Intronati from 1531 or Nicolo Secchi's Gl'Inganni from 1547. What you want is one of the highlights of Shakespeare's comedies and is one of his most frequently performed works.

action

Viola survived a shipwreck off the coast of Illyria , in which her twin brother Sebastian appears to have been killed. Viola decides to disguise himself as a boy in the service of Duke Orsino, who rules Illyria. Orsino is madly in love with the Countess Olivia, who, out of mourning for her deceased brother, wants to veil her face for seven years and avoid the company of men. Viola, disguised as a man, who now calls herself Cesario, quickly wins Orsino's favor and is commissioned by him to convey his messages of love to Olivia. Olivia falls in love with the "young man" Cesario, while Cesario / Viola has taken a liking to the Duke.

Knight Andreas Bleichenwang (originally Andrew Aguecheek) would also like to marry Olivia and finds support from Olivia's uncle Tobias Rülps (Toby Belch), who is after his niece's money to finance his binge. The nightly debauchery of the two, however, is disturbed again and again by the manager Malvolio. In order to take revenge on the adversary, Rülps and Bleichenwang, together with the maid Maria and the fool Feste, decide to play a trick on Malvolio: Maria, whose handwriting resembles Olivia's, forges a letter from the countess to the steward who is supposed to make him believe 'Olivia had her eye on him. Malvolio falls for the contents and acts according to the instructions of the letter: he wears yellow stockings with crossed garters, behaves strangely and smiles all the time. Because of this behavior, Tobias and Maria declare Malvolio crazy and lock him in a dark room. The imprisoned is also tormented when Feste introduces himself as a clergyman and claims that the room is full of windows and bright.

Events roll over when Sebastian - who survived the shipwreck - shows up and is mistaken for Cesario. Olivia meets Sebastian, confuses him with Orsino's messenger and falls head over heels in love with him. It comes to a showdown: Orsino threatens to kill the supposedly unfaithful servant, which is prevented by Viola's appearance. In the end a lot turns out for the better: Sebastian stays with Olivia, the twins recognize each other, Orsino promises to marry Viola, Bleichenwang leaves without having achieved anything, Sir Toby marries the chambermaid Maria and Malvolio is released from his captivity.

interpretation

The original title Twelfth Night is an allusion to the Epiphany Night as the conclusion of the twelve Rauhnächte . In Shakespeare's time, this beginning of the carnival season was already celebrated with mask games in which people temporarily change their identity through disguise. In the Swabian region, in the Czech Republic and in Creole culture, the custom of the Twelfth Night has been partially preserved to this day.

Comic

An essential comic element of this comedy arises from the fact that in Shakespeare's time women roles on the stage were without exception played by men. The constellations developed by Shakespeare, according to which a man then ultimately plays a woman who in turn pretends to be a man, lead to a number of gags. Typically, it is clear to the audience through their prior knowledge of the development of the story which character is who and who he is posing as; the characters in What you want, however, often misunderstand the identity of their counterparts - with corresponding consequences. In addition, Shakespeare uses different kinds of puns: For example, reference is made to Act 1, Scene 5, in which the fool, Feste, declares Olivia crazy because she mourns her brother, but at the same time is convinced that his soul is now be in heaven. Fixed statement Take away the fool (for example: Bring the fool away ) is immediately afterwards again a conscious exchange of roles.

tragedy

Like many of Shakespeare's later comedies, What You Want contains utterly comical, even tragic elements. On the one hand there is Olivia's manager, Malvolio (one of the few main characters of Shakespeare from the middle class): Since he is ambitious, strives for higher things and wants to maintain order and discipline (at that time downright reprehensible for a non-aristocrat), he is Maria and Sir Toby played along so badly that at the end of the play he can be seen as a broken man (this is particularly evident in the film version of Twelfth Night (1996) directed by Trevor Nunn ). But also the characters Feste (the court jester) and the knight Andreas Bleichenwang are not free from tragedy: Feste was certainly never a brilliant comedian and at the time of the play it was well past its prime - in the end he has to leave Olivia's household. Sir Andrew Bleichenwang may be a somewhat brittle contemporary, but does he deserve Olivia's cold rejection?

Illyria

When Illyria is mentioned as the location of the event (setting), there is in all probability no reference to the Roman province of Illyria in today's Dalmatia (between Istria (Croatia) and Albania); Rather is Illyria (original Illyria called) like a placeholder for the location of the event, especially since the events of the comedy is designed anywhere. What is important, however, is Illyrien's quality as an area unknown to the newcomers, because this is what makes the above mentioned mix-up comedy possible. Also note the play on words created by Illyria and Illusion. Illyria can be understood as a place of imagination (illusion). But Shakespeare doesn't entirely rule out the territory known as Illyria either. The area, since the Illyrian Wars in the 3rd century BC. Known for his piracy, Viola makes the uncertainty understandable in the first act when, in response to the captain's answer, where they are, notices what should she do in Illyria (And what shall I do in Illyria). It is not a country for young, unmarried women. If you take the age of Shakespeare as a point of reference, then Illyria was shaped by city-states ( Republic of Ragusa, today Dubrovnik , Bay of Kotor ) and the rule of the Venetian Republic. Duke Orsino is fittingly a prince of a not very important area. The many Romanized names (Olivia, Cesario, Malvolio) also fit into the land of Illyria in terms of etymology.

Adaptations

The comedy has been broadcast in various forms of performance and media. In 1932 an opera composed by Arthur Kusterer was premiered in the Semperoper in Dresden . In 1998 the world premiere of Manfred Trojahn's opera Was ihr wollt took place at the Bavarian State Opera . There are a number of films that make use of the content of the comedy, including two more recent, both of which adapt the template to more modern times. One of them, performed in 1996 as Was ihr wollt ( Twelfth Night ), was directed by Trevor Nunn , who set the events in the 19th century. The main location was Lanhydrock House in Cornwall. From the casting, Helena Bonham Carter as Olivia, Mel Smith as Sir Toby, Richard E. Grant as Sir Andrew and Ben Kingsley emerged as celebrations. The other was released in 2003 as a television film by Tim Supple , which transposed What you want into the present. In it appeared David Troughton with as Sir Toby. The film casting resulted in a decidedly multi-ethnic cast of the roles.

In 1958, the SFB produced a television play under the title Was ihr wollt under the direction of Ludwig Berger , in which a number of stars of the time participated, such as Joachim Hansen as Orsino, Fritz Tillmann as Junker Tobias, Wolfgang Gruner as Junker Andreas, Theo Lingen as Malvolio and Ursula Lillig as viola. In Lothar Bellag's TV film Was ihr wollt , 1963, Ursula Karusseit , who made her film debut with it, played Günther Simon and Christel Bodenstein . The DEFA processed the issue in 1965 a feature film Nothing but sin with Annekathrin citizens as Olivia and Herbert Graedtke as Sebastian. In 1968 the ORF broadcast a version directed by Dietrich Haugk and in which Volker Brandt as Orsino, Marion Degler as Olivia, Gertraud Jesserer as Viola, Jochen Brockmann as Sir Toby Belch, Peter Vogel as Sir Andrew, Leopold Rudolf as Malvolio, Elfriede Ott could be seen as Maria and Kurt Sowinetz as Kaspar. In 1987 the ZDF broadcast a production of the Münchner Kammerspiele; Directed by Dieter Dorn, Rolf Boysen played the Orsino and Cornelia Froboess the viola. In the summer of 2007, the piece was performed for the first time in the form of a musical , written by Heinz Rudolf Kunze and Heiner Lürig, in Hanover under the title Dresses make love or: What you want .

In literary terms, the material was also included in the youth novel by Celia Rees The Girl and the Fool (Orig. The Fool's Girl , Bloomsbury 2010), in which the genesis of the piece is described. In this story, the young - as yet unknown - William Shakespeare meets the Fool Feste and his assistant Violetta at a juggler's festival, who, as it turns out, is the expelled Duke's daughter Viola from Illyria. As the novel progresses, she tells her story and asks Shakespeare to help recover a stolen relic from her homeland.

Text output

Total expenditure
English
  • Elizabeth Story Donno (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Twelfth Night. New Cambridge Shakespeare. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1985, 2004, ISBN 978-0521535144 .
  • Keir Elam (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Twelfth Night. Arden Series. Arden, London 2008, ISBN 978-1903436998 .
  • Roger Warren, Stanley Wells (Eds.): William Shakespeare: Twelfth Night. Oxford Shakespeare. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1994, 2008, ISBN 978-0199536092 .
German
  • Dietrich Klose (ed.): William Shakespeare: What you want. Translated from the English by August Wilhelm Schlegel. Reclam, Stuttgart 1970.
  • Therese Steffen (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Twelfth Night Or, What You Will. Twelfth Night Or What You Want. English-German study edition. Stauffenburg, Tübingen 1992, ISBN 978-3772019425 .

literature

  • John Manningham: Diary (British Museum) (handwritten; John Manningham) (Allusion I, 98; EKC II, 212; SS 152)
  • Cambridge School (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Twelfth Night  - unabridged original English text with comments in English by the editors, Cambridge 1993, ISBN 0-521-43536-6 .

Web links

Wikisource: What you want  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Ina Schabert (Ed.): Shakespeare-Handbuch. Time, man, work, posterity. 5th, revised and supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2009, p. 428f., As well as Ulrich Suerbaum : The Shakespeare Guide . 3rd revised and supplemented edition, Reclam, Ditzingen 2015, pp. 155f. See also Michael Dobson , Stanley Wells (Ed.): The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. Oxford University Press, 2nd Edition, Oxford 2015, p. 365, and Roger Warren, Stanley Wells (Eds.): William Shakespeare: Twelfth Night. Oxford Shakespeare. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1994, 2008, Introduction pp. 14-19.
  2. ↑ Details in: Holger Zürch : What you were with me - Heinz Rudolf Kunze: 2005 to 2008. Leipzig 2008, ISBN 978-3-86901-008-3 .