ABSTRACT
The previous chapter began this work’s consideration of the comic portrayal of twinship, with an analysis of several commercial and academic plays that promote a positive understanding of twinship in this period. As was demonstrated, two separate yet connected interpretations of the twin condition emerge in these comedies. In both interpretations, the multiplicity inherent in the twin relationship is celebrated; however, these portrayals differ in the quality that is emphasized in their celebration of multiplicity. In the commercial comedies, Patient Grissil (1600), A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (1613), and Changes (1632), fecundity and the related interpretation of twin births as a blessing are stressed, countering the more negative, prodigious portrayal of twinship that dominated in the tragedies and tragicomedies with this contrasting assertion of twinship as a positive occurrence. In the academic comedies, Ignoramus (1615) and Senile Odium (1631), the negative portrayal of twinship that still lingers over the commercial drama is removed and, instead, twinship becomes a wholly beneficial plot device, contributing to the comic confusion of the plot and, more importantly, facilitating the play’s successful conclusion. Yet, while Ignoramus and Senile Odium present the most positive portrayal of the twin relationship yet discussed, this representation ultimately emerges as supplementary to the larger goal of these plays, as both comedies elevate the twin condition because of its ability to promote the humanistic principle of imitation within the plot. Moving on from this academic interpretation of twinship, this chapter will focus on a third representation of twinship, which emerges in sixteenth-and seventeenth-century drama, the depiction of twin characters in Shakespearean comedy. As earlier referenced, the representation of twinship in Shakespeare’s plays, The Comedy of Errors (1593) and Twelfth Night (1601), emerges as markedly similar to that which appears in Ignoramus and Senile Odium. With shared roots in Plautine comedy, Shakespeare similarly turns the multiplicity inherent in the twin relationship to comic purpose, augmenting the confusion of his plays through the inclusion of twin likeness. However, in contrast to the academic plays that celebrate twin likeness because of its links with imitation, Shakespeare’s plays carry no such academic agenda. Accordingly,
twinship is celebrated in its own right in these plays, a movement that is demonstrated as both The Comedy of Errors and Twelfth Night build toward a comic conclusion grounded in the reconciliation of twin siblings and the accompanying assertion of the establishment of the twin relationship as a positive solution within the action. While glimpses of the more ominous interpretation of twinship, which is promoted in the tragedies and tragicomedies, still emerge in these plays, Shakespeare’s comedies ultimately reference such an understanding of twinship in order to reject and override these negative associations with a positive portrayal of the twin relationship; therefore, it is in these comedies that the strongest argument for a positive understanding of twinship can be found.
