Skip to Main Content
WAB Faculty & Staff

Z G08: L&L Twelfth Night: Characters

G8 literature study guide

Character Map

Olivia

Olivia: Love sought is good, but giv'n unsought is better [III.1.1395]

What other characters say about Olivia:

Most radiant, exquisite and unmatchable beauty [Viola as Cesario, I.5.464]

Fool [Feste, I.5.345 ]

A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count.[Captain, I.2.83]

Marble-breasted tyrant [Orsino, V.1.2316]

Image Source: Folger Shakespeare Library Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Feste

Feste: I am indeed not her fool, but her corrupter of words. [III.1.1269 ]

What other characters say about Feste:

This fellow is wise enough to play the fool; And to do that well craves a kind of wit [Viola, III.1.1295]

barren rascal / I saw him put down the other day /with an ordinary fool that has no more brain
than a stone. [Malvolio, I.5.373-375

Image Source:Folger Shakespeare Library Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Malvolio

Meaning of Name: Ill Will

Malvolio: Go, hang yourselves all! you are idle shallow things: I am not of your element [III.4.1666-1667]

What other characters say about Malvolio:

“an affectioned ass" [Maria, II.3.846]

Oh, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a distempered appetite. [Olivia, I.5.380-381]

Here's an overweening rogue. [Sir Toby Belch, II.5.1058]

sometimes he is a kind of puritan [Maria, II.3.839]

Madman [Feste, I.5.429]

Image Source: Folger Shakespeare Library Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Sir Toby Belch

Meaning of Name: Suggests rotundity and indigestion, presumably from a life of excessive drinking and eating

Sir Toby Belch: Confine! I'll confine myself no finer than I am: / these clothes are good enough to drink in; and so be / these boots too: an they be not, let them hang 
themselves in their own straps. [I.3.124-127]

What other characters say about Sir Toby:

the knight's in admirable fooling [Feste, II.3.781]

Good Sir Toby [Maria, II.3.804]

are you mad? or what are you? Have ye no wit, manners, nor honesty,Have ye no wit, manners, nor honesty [Malvolio, II.3. 788-789]

Image Source: Folger Shakespeare Library Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Maria

Maria: My purpose is, indeed, a horse of that colour. [II.3.866]

What other characters say about Maria:

She's a beagle, true-bred, and one that adores me [Sir Toby Belch, II.3.878]

Here comes my noble gull-catcher. [Fabian, II.5.1212]

Most excellent devil of wit. [Sir Toby Belch, II.5.1232]

Fair shrew [Sir Andrew Aguecheek, I.3.159]

Look, where the youngest wren of nine comes. [Sir Toby Belch, III.2.1469]

Image Source: Folger Shakespeare Library Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Viola/Cesario

Viola/Cesario: No, my profound heart: and yet, by the very fangs / of malice I swear, I am not that I play. [I.5.477]

What other characters say about Viola/Cesario:

good youth [Duke Orsino, I.4.258]

For they shall yet belie thy happy years, / That say thou art a man: Diana's lip / Is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe / Is as the maiden's organ, shrill and sound, / And all is semblative a woman's part. [Duke Orsino, I.4.279-282]

between boy and man. He is very well-favoured and he speaks very shrewishly; one would think his mother's milk were scarce out of him [Malvolio, I.5.451-453]

O, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful / In the contempt and anger of his lip! [Olivia, III.1.1384-1385]

The count's gentleman, one Cesario: we took him for / a coward, but he's the very devil incardinate. [Sir Andrew Aguecheek, V.1.2379-2380]

Image Source: Folger Shakespeare Library Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Orsino, Duke of Illyria

Orsino:  I myself am best / When least in company. [1.4.277]

What other characters say about Orsino:

A noble duke, in nature as in name. [Captain, 1.2.72]

Your lord does know my mind, I cannot love him. / Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble, Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth, / In voices well divulged, free, learn'd, and valiant,  And in the dimension and the shape of nature / A gracious person; but yet I cannot love him. / He might have took his answer long ago. [Olivia, 1.5.547-553]

Image Source: Folger Shakespeare Library Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Sir Andrew Aguecheek

Meaning of Name: Ague means fever, suggesting a pale, sickly figure

Sir Andrew Aguecheek: Methinks sometimes I have no more wit / than a Christian or an ordinary man has: but I am a / great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit. [I.3.93-94]

What other characters say about Sir Andrew:

He's a very fool and a prodigal.[Maria, I.3.137]

He's as tall a man as any's in Illyria. [Sir Toby Belch, I.3.133]

Then hadst thou had an excellent head of hair. [Sir Toby Belch, I.3.204]

I shall be constrained in't to call thee knave, knight [Feste, II.3.164-165]

Image Source: Folger Shakespeare Library Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Sebastian

Sebastian: What relish is in this? How runs the stream? / Or I am mad, or else this is a dream. / Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep;/ If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep! [IV.1.2013-2015]

What other characters say about Sebastian:

Be not amazed; right noble is his blood. [Orsino, V.1.2465]

Sebastian was my brother too [Viola/Cesario, V.1.2433]

How have you made division of yourself? / An apple, cleft in two, is not more twin 
Than these two creatures. [Antonio, V.1.2422-2224]

Image Source: Folger Shakespeare Library Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Fabian

Fabian: If this were played upon a stage now, I could  / condemn it as an improbable fiction.[III.4.1671-1672]

What other characters say about Fabian:

Signior Fabian [Sir Toby Belch, II.5.1029]

Good Master Fabian [Feste, V.1.2191]

Image Source: Folger Shakespeare Library Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Attribution

Text on this page from:

Ricigliano, Lori. LibGuides: Twelfth Night Production Guide: Summary. //research.pugetsound.edu/c.php?g=365603&p=3806437. Accessed 17 Aug. 2018.
 

Comic strips of 12th Night from:

Gosling, Mya Lixian. “Shakespeare.” Good Tickle Brain, https://goodticklebrain.com/shakespeare-index/. Accessed 17 Aug. 2018.