Names in Twelfth Night
The Significance of Character Names in Shakespeare's Comedy
By paying attention to the names Shakespeare gives to his characters, new ways of reading of the Twelfth Night can be opened up.
Modern literary culture tends to disapprove of characters with obviously “meaningful” names, such as Ben Jonson’s Sir Politic Wouldbe, or John Bunyan’s Mr. Badman. It’s part of the instinctive tendency towards realism that insists on an illusion that the fictions we read pretends to be an account of actual events, and such names intrude on that fiction, pointing out that what we are reading (or watching) is false. Readers also sometimes feel that giving a character a name which denotes their character is too deterministic: it is “telling”, not “showing”.
The significance of names is not always as obvious as the examples from Jonson and Bunyan, however. Shakespeare’s naming technique in Twelfth Night is far more subtle, and can give us possible insights into the function of characters within the play’s world.
The most obvious names in the play are Sir Toby Belch and Sir. Andrew Aguecheek. Since these two are a comedy pair, their names are more obviously and broadly denote their roles. “Belch” doesn’t need much explaining, but “aguecheek” derives from “ague”, or fever. This doesn’t mean that Sir Andrew is running a temperature, but that his face looks pale and ill – as Sir Toby says later in a fit of fury, he is “a thin-faced knave.”
“Malvolio”, though not as precise as “Belch”, has elements of the Italian “malevolo” and the English “malevolent”. It implies that the character is someone of ill will, which seems fair, given Malvolio’s role in the play. Shakespeare’s contemporary John Marston wrote a play called The Malcontent, in which the title character’s name is Malevole.
“Feste” is a suggestive name. It could be related to the Italian word “festa”, and the English “feast” and “festival”. If that is the derivation, it adds another layer to our reading of the character, after all, C.L.Barber stressed the important of folk-festival and celebration in Shakespeare’s comedies in his book Shakespeare’s Festive Comedy. If Feste the Fool is somehow the spirit of festival, it sets him up as the opposite pole of the play to the “ill-will” of Malvolio.
“Antonio” does not seem to have any particular significance, except that it is a common Italian name, and there are Antonios all over Renaissance drama. It is worth noting, though, that “Antonio” is also the name given to one of the main characters in The Merchant of Venice. Both Antonios are faithful friends who put themselves in some physical danger for their friendship’s sake, and both possibly end up ignored. It could be coincidence, or the name might have had some instinctive significance for Shakespeare.
What should be the most obviously significant names in the play don’t necessarily strike a reader for some time. “Olivia”, who is wooed by the Duke, but falls in love with Cesario, is almost an anagram of “Viola”, Cesario’s real name. The ramifications of this are vast: does it mean that Orsino’s affections were fated come to rest on Viola? That Olivia is really falling in love with her own image as a boy? That the two women are equivalent somehow? This verbal resemblance has particularly engaged critics who are concerned with the play’s exploration of gender and sexuality.
