Act 2 — Twelfth Night — Edexcel GCSE English Literature 1ET0
Edexcel GCSE English Literature · 1ET0
Act 2
The plot, part by part
What you need to know
Sebastian alive with Antonio, Malvolio returning Olivia's ring, the late-night revelry he tries to stop, Maria's plan to forge a letter,
Orsino and Cesario talking of love, and the gulling of Malvolio in the garden.
Key quotations: 'If you will not murder me for my love, let me be your servant', 'I have many enemies in Orsino's court', 'I left no ring with her: what means this lady?', 'O time! thou must untangle this, not I; / It is too hard a knot for me to untie!', 'Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?', 'Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time in you?', 'sometimes he is a kind of puritan', 'She never told her love', 'She sat like patience on a monument, / Smiling at grief', 'I am all the daughters of my father's house, / And all the brothers too', 'To be Count Malvolio!', 'M, O, A, I, doth sway my life', 'remember who commended thy yellow stockings, and wished to see thee ever cross-gartered', 'some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em'.
Structure: Viola's ring soliloquy at the centre of the love triangle, the revelry Malvolio interrupts setting up Maria's revenge, and the letter scene watched by hidden onlookers.
Context: the festive spirit of Twelfth Night against Malvolio's Puritan disapproval.
Edexcel's Shakespeare question has two parts: part (a) on the printed extract marks only language, form and structure (AO2), so context earns nothing there; part (b) on the play elsewhere, from memory, marks the argument and its references (AO1, 15 marks) and context (AO3, 5 marks), not language analysis. Say which part each worked paragraph and exam tip is for.
