By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Sir Toby Belch, Olivia’s uncle, is a hard-drinking partygoer whose joie de vivre and high spirits stand in stark opposition to the character of Malvolio in Shakespeare’s play. But he is no fool. Although Sir Toby speaks highly of Sir Andrew, claiming he can speak many languages, we quickly … Read more
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
The character of Olivia in Shakespeare’s classic comedy Twelfth Night; or, What You Will is one of his more complex comic heroines, because of the inner conflict raging within the character after she falls in love with what she thinks is a young servant named Cesario (but is in fact a young woman named Viola in disguise).
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
King John is the most unheroic of Shakespeare’s protagonists. He is not the cruellest, but he is perhaps the most craven, the one lacking in personal depth and, for want of a better word, character. He is more put-upon than anything, which somehow succeeds in making his acts of violence – commanding his follower Hubert to kill John’s nephew, Arthur, being the most famous, or infamous, example – even more detestable, because he cannot even be asked to possess some dramatic grandeur as he does it.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Although it isn’t openly stated, it is implied that Ophelia is Hamlet’s ‘girlfriend’: his betrothed, the woman he will marry. Like Hamlet, she is part of the royal court, and her father, Polonius, is a lord – so although she isn’t royalty like Hamlet, she would be a suitable match for him in Danish society.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Malvolio, Olivia’s steward in Twelfth Night, is self-important, pompous, and even a little puritanical (he is accused of being a ‘puritan’ by the other characters). But he is also alienated. Indeed, his alienation from the other characters – from Olivia’s affections and favours which he so craves, and from Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and Fabian and their drunken and riotous antics – is his saving grace, and what prevents him from being an insufferable bore.