“Rings and Things” in Twelfth Night: Gift Exchange, Debt and the Early Modern Matrimonial Economy

Abstract

Late in act 1 of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Olivia “returns” a ring Cesario has purportedly left with her. Declaring that she will have “none of it” (1.5.272), refusing to “hold him up with hopes” (1.5.274), Olivia rejects the ring only to impose it upon the object of her own suddenly emergent desire. Cesario’s, “O time, thou must untangle this, not I. / It is too hard a knot for me t’untie” (2.2.38-39), not only registers dismay about the gender complications her cross-dressing has created, but also, I would argue, registers distress over the readily identifiable obligation imposed by the gift.