Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare is a comedy where commoners and royalty speak together frequently, in both prose and blank verse. The usage is not always clear to the modern reader but is easily understood with sufficient knowledge of the literary styles of the period in which Shakespeare lived. This shift from one form of speech to the other gives many things to the audience, allowing them to better perceive and understand the situation and …

…to absorb some examples of the best of each. The text of this play would not have been as witty and humorous had Shakespeare not taken full advantage of these literary devices, and Twelfth Night would not be the masterpiece it is known as today. Bibliography Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night. Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd. 1998. Crane, Milton. Shakespeare’s Prose. London: Cambridge University Press. 1951. Harbage, Alfred. A Readers Guide To William Shakespeare. New York: Octagon Books. 1983.