Part of: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (The Oxford Shakespeare) Twelfth-Night: or, What You Will

The teen romantic comedy She’s the Man retells Twelfth Night as set in a modern high school.

Music is a vital part of Twelfth Night, and composers have enjoyed setting and re-setting Shakespeare’s song lyrics. Quilter’s setting for “O Mistress Mine” is probably the most well known version of this song from Twelfth Night.

Twelfth Night has a famously complicated plot, with many of its complexities arising from men falling in love with women who are masquerading as men…and played by the boy actors of Shakespeare’s time. Untangle some of those complications with this helpful and slightly silly graphic.

A side plot in Twelfth Night is the love of Malvolio the steward for his employer Olivia. Other servants trick him into thinking she would like to see him in fancy yellow stockings. This clip from a traditional performance at Shakespeare’s Globe helps modern audiences get the joke.

Shakespeare’s comedies are known for their use of the “fool.” His fools are sometimes truly foolish, and sometimes foolish in a way that reveals a deep and important wisdom. Inspiration for the wise fool can be traced to Erasmus’s Praise of Folly.