Saturnalia and Shakespearean Comedy

C.L. Barber argues that all of Shakespeare's festival comedies, such as "A Midsummer's Nights Dream" and "Twelfth Night," make us of the convention of the Roman Saturnalia. During Saturnalia in ancient Rome, the social norms of that world were turned upside down. Paupers were allowed to don the robes of the gentry, and slaves enacted the role of kings. This was not simply a fun ritual to while away the long winter hours of darkness, but an effective Freudian psychological release for the lower classes of an otherwise repressive society. At least, they could abuse their masters for a day. Likewise, the ruling classes achieved some security, by knowing that the negative feelings of the lower classes could be released in a contained and ritualized fashion, rather than through the uncontained means of revolt and permanent disorder such as revolution.

Similarly, all of Shakespeare's festival comedies involve social inversions, whereby as in "A Midsummer's Night Dream," the existing world is temporarily turned upside down, as the ass-headed Bottom becomes beloved of the fairy queen, to take just one example from that play. As in "Twelfth Night," these inversions often involve gender or sexual confusion as well as social confusion, as Viola dresses as a young boy, and pretends to be a servant, even though she is a young gentlewoman. In true Saturnalia fashion, the unconscious dreams of sexual and social transgression can come into being through a festival, ritual, and 'played' context (either within a play, as in "A Midsummer's Night Dream," or through role-playing as in "Twelfth Night") and then be put more safely to rest once the 'revels' have ended, and the festival season come to its natural climax and subsequent termination. Because of the release, the previous suppression and consequent suppression is made more bearable.

Work Cited

Barber, C.L. Shakespeare's Festive Comedy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959.