The Name's the Thing (Twelfth Night, 2.3)

Someone very dear to me once complained that the "problem" with Twelfth Night is that Shakespeare does not "develop the revenge plot against Malvolio" enough.  Naturally, I had a major league problem with this.  Made me shutter.  But instead of throwing down my glove, I merely stated that everything that we need to know about the revenge plot is in the name itself.  Malvolio.  Ill will. 

The following passage says it all.  This is the speech that elicits the famous response from Toby about "no more cakes and ale" and commentaries about Puritanism.  Here is Malvolio reacting to the present mirth and present laughter, in the words of Feste's song, the irony being that Sir Toby and Sir Andrew chose a song about love rather than the good life:

               My masters, are you mad? or what are you? Have ye
               no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like
               tinkers at this time of night? Do ye make an
               alehouse of my lady's house, that ye squeak out your
               coziers' catches without any mitigation or remorse
               of voice? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor
               time in you? 

Interesting, though.  Present mirth hath present laughter.  Mirth.  The House of Mirth.  The Heart of the Fool, according to Ecclesiastes, lives in the House of Mirth.  In two houses where music is played live the hearts of two fools: Orsino and Olivia.

For all the negative criticism about inconsistencies in the works of Shakespeare, it is important to remember that, as Hamlet says, "the purpose of playing...is to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature."  These inconsistencies are but directions by indirections.  They represent nature as best as possible by the human mind.  They are about as lifelike as it gets....