[MUSIC] Hi, I'm Rachael Deagman Simonetta, an instructor in the Department of English at the University of Colorado Boulder. Throughout this course, we've heard many conversations about the role of Malvolio in 12th night. We often return to Maraiah's comment about him and act two scene three when she says that Malvolio is a quote, kind of Puritan, unquote. Perhaps it's not accidental that Shakespeare labels Malvolio the character whose name means ill-will as a Puritan because of their anti theatrical tendencies. Puritans produce pamphlets in opposition to live performances, out of concern for maintaining the social hierarchy by adhering to sanctuary laws. So costumes, for example, could invert the social order. But they were concerned more generally with any type of moral depravity that might occur the life performance. So it makes sense that Shakespeare would poke fun at Malvolio. But I also want to suggest that we take Maraiah's phrase seriously, that he's a kind of Puritan who's actually trapped in a very thorny, constantly shifting religious landscape. To understand the complexity of the religious landscape and Renaissance England, and to try to understand how Shakespeare's play responds to this landscape, let's back up to the early 16th century prior to the reformation, when England still had a single religion, Catholicism and a single head of the church, the Pope. Christians relied on sacramental practices or resource for salvation. The Sacrament of Penance looked very different than the way we see confession depicted on TV or in a novel, where you have the priest in a dark confessional box in the center comes in to whisper his sin through the screen to the priest. But evil confession actually took place in the open in a church with members being capable of hearing one another. The priests job was to hear confession to help the pendant and make satisfaction for her sins. As the demand for pastoral education grew and the later middle ages, catechetical manuals circulated to teach the basics of belief in practice. The text provided standard categories for the examination of a penitence contents that includes basic tenants of the Christian faith, such as the 10 commandments, the creator, the Papa master. Part of the point of these texts was to provide the priests with a formula to elicit full confession, and proper penitential practice was really important because Catholics believe that the salvation of the soul is at stake. It didn't want to wind up like the ghost in Hamlet, who's tormented for having died without making a proper confession. With the reformation came radical changes to Catholic practice in general under the Sacrament of Penance in particular, as the sacraments were reduced from seven to just two with baptism and a very different model of the Eucharist for meaning. Martin Luther's case for a private conscience, enlightened by personal readings of scripture eventually made its way to England during the reign of Henry VIII. The language of the Reformation terms like sola scriptura, only the scripture should determine practice. And so a few days only faith not work should determine salvation. Demonstrate the tremendous pressure placed on traditional practice. England in the 16th and 17th century following Henry VIII split from the Roman church that grappled with really deeply divisive religious questions, who should appoint ministers and how should they be trained? How should scripture be read and understood? What are the resources for cleansing the contents particularly when the penance is no longer a sacrament, or what's the relationship between grace and works? These questions were extremely fraught and were the source of considerable debate and occasional conflict. As a way to minimize doctrinal conflict, Elizabeth I the first took a kind of Protestant middle road. Such an approach was not without controversy. So those with Catholic sympathies are who secretly worshiped as Catholics wanted England to return to more traditional practices. Where as extreme Protestants known as Puritans, which originally was a term of abuse, wanted to purify the Church of England of its Roman Catholic practices all together to eliminate quote, popish elements and doctrine, ritual and government. Puritans were satirized as moral as her intent on eliminating all forms of cruelty, whether by removing idolatrous images from churches, or by adhering to anti theatrical beliefs in order to cleanse sin. And I want to back to Mongolia to suggest how he does and does not adhere to strict Puritan standards. So we recall that not only a falls for the trick set by Mariah Toby invested to convince him that Olivia might indeed love him. And so, Malvolio galviance around in his yellow stockings with the big grin on his face, making him a kind of Puritan, who sheds his austere appearance when the he sees the opportunity to have greatness thrust upon him or to invert the social order. And after he seen for around like 144, Toby decides to take the prank one step further by having not only a bound in a darkroom, quote, for their pleasure and his penance, unquote. I want to draw your attention to that word penance, because I believe that act four seen two have the place serves as a kind of twisted parody of Catholic practice. As we recall, Festy under the direction of Mariah and Toby, disguises himself asserts hope as the curate by putting on a gown and a beard. At line four, he says that he will, quote, dissemble himself in it, and that he will quote, that he wishes that he quote, were the first that ever assembled in such a gown, unquote. To dissemble means to conceal the truth, or to the real nature of something in suggests that censure might occur. This word was really common in religious context. So a requisite clap like, for example would be a dissembler if he espoused Protestant beliefs, but secretly held past to Catholicism. So dissembling would be a way to escape religious persecution while still maintaining one beliefs. When I teach this play, I invite students to think about the folio stage direction at line 22 that reads Malvolio within, to think about how to create the dark house on stage. The direction suggests that Malvolio might be offstage, or that he might be speaking from behind the door or a curtain. So one clever version place Malvolio behind the door looking through a window that face the audience. So the Malvolio could not see the audience because he's in the darkroom, but the audience can see Malvolio The setup would also help the actor playing Besties or Topaz to move between the two roles quickly, as we see in that line 104, when the actor flips back and forth between the two characters. So imagine Malvolio in the window with the dark house behind him. And then, Besty can move to one side when it's Besty, and to the other side when he's Sir Topaz, or if he needs to make the adjustment quickly he can just pull on his beard. So when describing the room, one that Malvolio calls, tells us the house is dark, Besty knows that it has bay windows and transparent as barren cottons, meaning the windows are as transparent as a barricade, and barricades would be placed in front of windows to keep enemies out. And the clear stories he tells us towards the South North are as lustrous as evany. So of course here Festy's corrupting words are playing with language but he's also doing his characteristic work. If we slow down to think about what he's saying. He's suggesting that there's an enemy outside of the windows, presumably sir Topaz Zachary, or the dissembling priest, and that the dark room is working as a sort of Reformed Church space. The clear story is the upper part of a cathedral, or another large church that contains a series of windows that emit light to the main part of the building. Advances in medieval architecture, namely flying buttresses, make clear store as possible by redistributing the weight of the building. The outcome was a very different light church space that would often include stained glass windows. And the clear story, the very place where parishioners could read scriptural stories and images if they didn't have access to a Bible in English, which most of them did not. During the reformation, of course, many windows were destroyed. Removing material objects that reformers feared might lead to idolatry. So in Festy says that the clear stories are as lustrous as evany. He's suggesting that the windows are visual stories have been blacked out entirely. [INAUDIBLE] Malvolio invites Sir Topaz to ask him any question. And interestingly, Festy asks a question of faith. Here, we should keep in mind that reciting the articles of faith would be part of a medieval confession. So Festy's spoofing the role of the priest during confession when he asks Malvolio, quote, what is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wildfowl? Unquote. Malvolio replies that the ancient Greek philosopher taught the transmigration of souls, a belief that upon death the soul would jump into a newfound body, a model clearly outside of the Christian belief system. When asked about his opinion of Pythagoras, Malvolio answers as an early modern Christian would, quote, I think no believe the soul in no way approve his opinion, unquote. And with this response, the priest, Festy, he tells Malvolio that he will convert to the new belief system or be held mad. So part of the humor of the scene, of course is our knowledge that Malvolio is far from mad by wearing his yellow stockings, you can send it to the very performance that a Puritan would critique. And now he's found himself at the center of the 12th night madness. But I also think it's important to realize that this scene engages pressing religious questions. The scene is and isn't a representation of penance. The bizarre interrogation places the kind of Puritan Malvolio into a mock Catholic confession scene with a dissembling priest who's actually a fool examining his conscience. The shifting religious signifiers in this scene, no doubt, leave Malvolio disoriented at best. And I imagine many of the theater growers themselves might have felt very similarly given their religious tumbled of the time.
