Twelfth Night

In Twelfth Night, one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies, love, ambition, mistaken identity, and a confusing shipwreck toss a motley crew of characters into a tangle of relationships that becomes hilariously complicated before it finally and wonderfully unfurls by the end of the play. The actual “Twelfth Night” is a night of festivity — the final night of what used to be the extended period of celebration of the Christmas season — and a night that marks the boundary between the time for games and the business of the everyday world. As the characters seek to right the wrongs of others and find true love, the play shows us a world that we would all choose to enjoy, if we only could, while illustrating Shakespeare’s belief that love can be as delightfully confusing as any illusion, and as full of folly as it is of fun. THE NEW FOLGER
LIBRARY SHAKESPEARE Designed to make Shakespeare’s great plays available to all readers, the New Folger Library edition of Shakespeare’s plays provides accurate texts in modern spelling and punctuation, as well as scene-by-scene action summaries, full explanatory notes, many pictures clarifying Shakespeare’s language, and notes recording all significant departures from the early printed versions. Each play is prefaced by a brief introduction, by a guide to reading Shakespeare’s language, and by accounts of his life and theater. Each play is followed by an annotated list of further readings and by a “Modern Perspective” written by an expert on that particular play.