Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night is chock-full of cross-dressing women and confused identities. And there’s lots of love and romance in there as well. How can it not be fun?
So riddle me this: what does the play’s representation of gender and sexuality tell us about Elizabethan attitudes towards these issues?
Plus, does a knowledge of Elizabethan stage conventions (for example, the use of boy actors to play women characters) change our understanding of the play? If so, how?