Speaker - Wayne A. Rebhorn

Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night has long been associated with the festive aspects of carnival, especially in its rejection of authority and the exploration of gender confusion in its main, romantic plot. But ‘carnival’ as used by Shakespeare also meant a time of grotesque liberation and indulgence. The carnivalesque can be disturbing as well as exhilarating. While rejection of authority finally yields to a return to the norms of ordinary social life, Twelfth Night preserves the disruptiveness of carnival to the very end.

Wayne A. Rebhorn holds the Vacek Chair in English. He has given talks at Yale, Princeton, and Chicago, has lectured in France, Italy, and Germany, and has won fellowships from the ACLS and the Guggenheim Foundation. In 1990, his Foxes and Lions: Machiavelli’s Confidence Men won the Marraro Prize of the Modern Language Association. His translation of Boccaccio’s Decameron won the PEN Center USA’s 2014 Prize for Literary Translation.

Speaker - Wayne A. Rebhorn Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night has long been associated with the festive aspects of carnival, especially in its rejection of authority and the exploration of gender confusion in its main, romantic plot. But ‘carnival’ as used by Shakespeare also meant a time of grotesque liberation and indulgence. The carnivalesque can be disturbing as well as exhilarating. While rejection of authority finally yields to a return to the norms of ordinary social life, Twelfth Night preserves the disruptiveness of carnival to the very end. Wayne A. Rebhorn holds the Vacek Chair in English. He has given talks at Yale, Princeton, and Chicago, has lectured in France, Italy, and Germany, and has won fellowships from the ACLS and the Guggenheim Foundation. In 1990, his Foxes and Lions: Machiavelli’s Confidence Men won the Marraro Prize of the Modern Language Association. His translation of Boccaccio’s Decameron won the PEN Center USA’s 2014 Prize for Literary Translation.

Speaker - Wayne A. Rebhorn

Shakespeare’s&nbsp;Twelfth Night&nbsp;has long been associated with the festive aspects of carnival, especially in its rejection of authority and the exploration of gender confusion in its main, romantic plot. But ‘carnival’ as used by Shakespeare also meant a time of grotesque liberation and indulgence. The carnivalesque can be disturbing as well as exhilarating. While rejection of authority finally yields to a return to the norms of ordinary social life,&nbsp;Twelfth Night&nbsp;preserves the disruptiveness of carnival to the very end.

Wayne A. Rebhorn holds the Vacek Chair in English. He has given talks at Yale, Princeton, and Chicago, has lectured in France, Italy, and Germany, and has won fellowships from the ACLS and the Guggenheim Foundation. In 1990, his&nbsp;Foxes and Lions: Machiavelli’s Confidence Men&nbsp;won the Marraro Prize of the Modern Language Association. His translation of Boccaccio’s&nbsp;Decameron won the PEN Center USA’s 2014 Prize for Literary Translation.

Carnival in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night

The British Studies program at the University of Texas at Austin was created in 1975. For more than thirty years the program has sponsored public lectures in English literature, history, and government, and has conducted a weekly seminar called the Faculty Seminar on British Studies that includes faculty members, graduate students, undergraduates, and members of the Austin community.

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Carnival in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night

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