Simon Smith

"Twelfth Night" Reconsidered: Identity, Song and Performativity

Twelfth Night has long been recognised as one of Shakespeare’s most musical plays. In recent decades critics have increasingly given attention to the ways in which it is concerned with identity too, from Viola’s adoption of the Cesario identity for the vast majority of the play, to the conflict between Malvolio and Sir Toby over social advancement, hereditary rank, and meritocracy. This talk, emerging from my research for the new Cambridge Shakespeare Edition of Twelfth Night, argues that the two threads of song and identity are in fact closely entwined within the play, with each holding the key to a deeper understanding of the other. Looking in particular detail at key scenes including 2.3, 2.4 and 5.1, and drawing on the play’s rich stage history that is yet to be fully researched, this talk will suggest ways of reading the play closely in light of the wider themes of identity and song, and suggest outward connections, too, with other plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

Simon Smith, FSA is Associate Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama at the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham. He works on early modern theatre, music, and sensory culture. His monograph, Musical Response in the Early Modern Playhouse, 1603-1625 (Cambridge, 2017), won the Shakespeare’s Globe Book Award and the University English Book Prize. He has edited three essay collections, most recently Playing and Playgoing in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2022; with Emma Whipday). He has worked as a historical music, theatre and language consultant for Shakespeare’s Globe, the BBC, the Independent and the RSC. Current projects include an edition of Twelfth Night for Cambridge Shakespeare Editions, a Leverhulme-funded monograph on early modern theatre audiences, The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare & Sound (with Carla Della Gatta), and a short book, Shakespeare and Music, for the ‘Oxford Shakespeare Topics’ series.