Twelfth Night, or What You Will, a…
February 1602 CE
Twelfth Night, or What You Will, a comedy by William Shakespeare, is believed to have been written around 1601-02 as a Twelfth Night's entertainment for the close of the Christmas season.
The play expands on the musical interludes and riotous disorder expected of such an occasion, with plot elements drawn from the short story Of Apollonius and Silla by Barnabe Rich, based on a story by Matteo Bandello.
The first recorded performance is on February 2, 1602, at Middle Temple Hall, one of the Inns of Court, at Candlemas, the formal end of Christmastide in the year's calendar.
The play will not be published until its inclusion in the 1623 First Folio.
The title prepares the audience for its jovial feel of festivities consisting of drink, dance, and giving in to general self-indulgence.
The subtitle What You Will—believed to be an afterthought, created after John Marston premièred a play titled What You Will during the course of the writing—implies that the audience is also involved in the merry spirit found in the play.
The play is believed to have drawn extensively on the Italian production Gli Ingannatori (or The Cheats).
It is conjectured that the name of its male lead, Orsino, was suggested by Virginio Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, an Italian nobleman who visited London in the winter of 1600 to 1601.
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