×

Some of us love Shakespeare, others of us love the idea of Shakespeare. But I have never met someone who takes issue with the Bard.

Then I met the Puritans.

‘Twelfth Night’ and Puritanism

One of Shakespeare’s early plays is Twelfth Night, written in 1601-1602. It is also one of his most popular plays even today, since it was part of the Twelve Nights of Christmas, so popular in their day. Typical for Shakespeare, the plot is funny yet entirely unbelievable by any standard of experience. The plot concerns Viola and Sebastian, twins separated by shipwreck. Viola disguised to dress as a boy, falls in love with a duke, who himself falls in love with the Countess Olivia. Viola works for the countess (still dressed as a boy), and somehow manages to make her fall in love with her male persona. Hilarious things ensue, but you’ll have to read the play to find out what happens next.

The issue with Puritanism arises through a secondary character, Malvolio, a steward in Countess Olivia’s house. He is a fatuous man, loved by none of the other characters, yet always assuming his opinions matter. The name itself gives away some of the plot device here: “Mal volio” means “unloved” or “badly loved,” which we might say today means “unwanted.”

From his first arrival on stage Malvolio is a canker. He complains about the comedic relief in Olivia’s house for being too irreverent. He has to be told to stand silent for his complaining, since he is full of “self love” for all his opinions. In all things, he is a wet blanket.

Then in Act 2, Scene 3, the root of Malvolio’s character comes out in a conversation among the other characters:

MARIA: Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of puritan.

SIR ANDREW: O, if I thought that, I’d beat him like a dog!

SIR TOBY BELCH: What, for being a puritan? Thy exquisite reason, dear knight?

SIR ANDREW: I have no exquisite reason for ’t, but I have reason good enough.

MARIA: The devil a puritan that he is, or anything constantly, but a time-pleaser; an affectioned ass that cons state without book and utters it by great swarths; the best persuaded of himself, so crammed, as he thinks, with excellencies, that it is his grounds of faith that all that look on him love him. And on that vice in him will my revenge find notable cause to work.

The annoyed anti-Puritans then devise a plot to embarrass Malvolio by tricking him into thinking Olivia is in love with him. He falls for the trap and makes a fool of himself, much to the laughter of both the characters in the play and the audience.

Much of the dialogue explains itself. The characters do not like Malvolio, so they refer to him as a Puritan. Sir Andrew goes so far as to suggest he would beat him like a dog, and then admits he has no real grounds to do so, yet he still wants to do so.

The final dialogue by Maria is a bit more archaic yet explainable. She offers an oxymoronic comment that Malvolio is a “devil of a Puritan.” She then adds that Malvolio is a narcissist who loves himself more than anything and carries himself as an inauthentic faker (“affectioned ass”). Maria then rounds all this out by pointing out that the “his grounds of faith” is merely to win approval: rough words about a movement inspired by the mission to purify the faith of the Anglican church.

In the end, Malvolio is a subplot in an already full roster of interesting characters. He is comic relief for Shakespeare, not invented out of thin air but rather based on the type of humor already swirling in early modern London. These same tropes will be used throughout the history of Puritanism, from Shakespeare to The Scarlet Letter until today.

Puritan Struggles in England

There is an enduring myth about Puritanism: they were anti-theater (or anti-arts). The story of Shakespeare and the use of Puritan stereotypes in Twelfth Night gives us a clue about the struggle. Puritans were fighting a two-front war: on the one side, they wanted respect in Elizabethan culture; on the other, they wanted their ideas to have influence in the church.

The issue often for Puritanism was not their hatred for beauty of the arts. The issue was that these venues were tools being used in their day to leverage animosity towards their theological mission. Entertainment or art was never quite so simple as to be divorced from cultural struggles. As the Puritans fought for the soul of their church, they often fought against lampoons such as Malvolio and his curmudgeonly faith.


For a quick video on this same material, watch this:

Podcasts

LOAD MORE
Loading