University of Virginia Library

Complex Montage

"Twelfth Night" is much more
than a simple comedy. It is a
montage of complex plots and
deceptions all held in a magic world
that is out of tune. Unlike most of
Shakespeare's comedies, though, the
whole world of Illyria is pervaded
with a sense of potential tragedy.
This gives the play additional depth
and appeal as Shakespeare worked to
develop a style of tragicomedy that
was to reach its culmination in
"The Tempest."

Director Jonathan Miller
approaches the play with a feel for
"the emblematic themes which
animated the renaissance imagination."
Mr. Miller notes that "the
play offers a perfect example of the
ironic use of metaphor. Arching
over all is the master image of
musical harmony."

Mr. Miller sees Illyria as "a social
keyboard untuned by the vagrancies
of human folly." He adds "just as
Lear had to go mad in order to gain
a superior form of moral sanity, so
Illyria must be turned upside down
before it can recover a harmony
which is modeled upon the permanent
order of heavenly decorum."