Act 5 — Twelfth Night — Edexcel GCSE English Literature 1ET0
Edexcel GCSE English Literature · 1ET0
Act 5
The plot, part by part
What you need to know
Antonio before Orsino, Olivia's claim on Cesario as her husband, the twins' reunion, Orsino's promise to marry Viola,
Malvolio's release and vow of revenge, and Feste's closing song.
Key quotations: 'Notable pirate! thou salt-water thief!', 'His life I gave him and did thereto add / My love, without retention or restraint', 'Why should I not, had I the heart to do it, / Like to the Egyptian thief at point of death, / Kill what I love?', 'I'll sacrifice the lamb that I do love', 'Cesario, husband, stay', 'One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons', 'An apple, cleft in two, is not more twin / Than these two creatures', 'My father had a mole upon his brow', 'Madam, you have done me wrong, / Notorious wrong', 'And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges', 'I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you', 'He hath been most notoriously abused', 'Orsino's mistress and his fancy's queen', 'For the rain it raineth every day'.
Structure: the comic resolution in one long scene, the twins' reunion, and the endings left open: Viola still in men's clothes, Malvolio's exit, Antonio's silence and Feste alone on stage.
Context: comedy's ending in marriage, and how far the festival's disorder is put back in order.
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.
