Comic Misrule, Festive Hierarchies, and Social Inversion as Political Satire in Twelfth Night

Name of Author : Dr.P.Parthiban

Abstract: Early modern comedy in England often worked as a public stage for power, social anxiety, and desire rather than as simple entertainment. Shakespeares Twelfth Night turns Illyria into a carnival world where fools, servants, and drunk knights temporarily overrule stewards and nobles. Comic misrule, festive hierarchies, and sharp social inversion act as forms of political satire that expose how authority depends on costume, gesture, writing, and collective belief. A New Historicist approach helps to place the play within the cultural and political tensions of Elizabethan society, where theatre negotiated issues of class discipline, religious seriousness, household order, and festive license. Laughter in Twelfth Night does not merely cure sadness; it unsettles claims to stable rank and reveals the fragility of those who try to control pleasure. Malvolios rise and fall, Sir Tobys boisterous rule, Marias plotted joke, Violas disguise, and Festes sharp wit together expose the gap between social performance and real power. Political satire in the play emerges through the stage image of a world briefly turned upside down, in which those who usually command become objects of public amusement.

Keywords : New Historicism; carnival; comic misrule; social inversion; Malvolio; political satire

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