Looking for Love, or, Let’s not
Throughout history, people have undertaken acts of both great heroism and immortality, all in the name of love. Such a cogent force plays its part too, in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. This comic play centers upon a entangled love triangle, which begins as the noble Orsino falls in love with Olivia, a maiden who has recently lost her husband. Things become complicated as Viola, a noblewoman, takes a different identity in order to be accepted by society as a male servant named Cesario. She falls in love with Orsino, and in turn, Olivia falls in love with Cesario, completing the full love triangle. In The Twelfth Night, Shakespeare implements the futile romantic love of the nobility to demonstrate that romantic
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Such a reference to a plague would be recognized by the audience in London, where Shakespeare lived, “the plague swept through London in 1563, 1578-9, 1582, 1592-3”(Mabillard). The bubonic plague that afflicted people during Shakespeare’s time was an awful disease, “Symptoms would include red, grossly inflamed and swollen lymph nodes, called buboes (hence the name bubonic), high fever, delirium, and convulsions... if the bacterial infection spread to the lungs (pneumonic plague) or to the bloodstream (septicemic plague) the unfortunate victim would certainly die, usually within hours with symptoms too horrific to recount.”(Mabillard). Shakespeare shows how Olivia views her love - as something that is both negative and harmful, as she realises that she cannot love Cesario due to the differences in their social class. This befuddles and stresses Olivia, later leading her to seek out Cesario, even proposing to him, which was the opposite of the norm at the time. Olivia’s desperation and attempt to avoid the pursuits of Orsino forces her to ask for Cesario/s hand in marriage. Shakespeare demonstrates through Olivia’s allusion that love can be a detrimental and stressful experience, comparable to that of a
The themes of love triangles and deception are important ideas in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. There are layers of deception going on in this work that play into the two themes. Of course in a Shakespeare play love cannot just occur without a hitch and there is always a challenge the characters must overcome. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Helena loves Demetrius, but Demetrius is too in love with Hermia to even bother pursuing Helena. This situation is similar in Twelfth Night. Orsino is trying to court Olivia and sends his page Cesario, who really is a girl in disguise, to talk to Olivia. Of course this deception causes problems because Olivia falls in love with Cesario, creating a love triangle.
When Olivia's transformation concludes, she no longer has the same ideals about love that she had previously. She is now lovesick over Cesario. In her dialogue, Shakespeare uses figurative language to show how she obsesses over wanting Cesario to love her. Olivia’s obsession causes her to act in a manner she normally wouldn’t, “Give me leave, beseech you. I did send, / After the last enchantment you did here, / A ring in chase of you. So did I abuse / Myself, my servant, and, I fear me, you: / Under your hard construction must I sit, / To force that on you, in a shameful cunning / Which you knew none of yours. What might you think?” (3.1.102-1-8). With this, Olivia compares meeting Cesario to having an enchantment put upon her, stating that
Naturally, one of the most reoccurring themes in Shakespeare is romantic love. It is perhaps not a coincidence that he put so much emphasis on this elusive and enigmatic emotion. In the Elizabethan age when he was writing, the arts were being explored more fervently, and thus raw human emotions began to surface in the mainstream culture. In Twelfth Night, love is a confusing and fickle thing, as demonstrated in the relationships between Duke Orsino and Olivia; Olivia and Viola/Curio; Malvolio and Olivia (she certainly has an effect on men doesn't she?); Duke Orsino and Viola/Curio. However, the characters seem to have a love-hate relationship with Cupid. Within the first line of the play, it is glorified: "If music be the food of love, play on..." (Duke Orsino, I:I). And while Olivia is annoyed with Orsino's affection, she craves Curio's.
Sarcastically, a love triangle is formed since not only Viola who has fallen in love with Orsino, Olivia has fallen in love with Cesario as well. As Cesario is a boy in Orsino’s eyes, Viola is unable to confess her love for Orsino, “I'll do my best to woo your lady/ Yet, a barful strife! Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife” (ActI ScIV). The reality is always kindless, Olivia is not interested in the Duke, “Your lord does k... ...
As prescient and insightful as this evaluation may seem after considering the outcome of Twelfth Night’s romantic pairings, it reads as a very shallow perspective rather than any sort of wisdom – to the Duke, love is never permanent, lasting, or constant (just like the nature of the tides, it always changes). Duke Orsino has no concern whatsoever for Olivia’s feelings of grief after the loss of her brother – she is merely an object of his desires at the moment, and as his eventual courtship with Viola proves, he is extremely fickle in his affections. (Even before Viola’s disguise became apparent, Orsino showed some signs of attraction to the male Cesario – this raises a few questions about exactly how far his romantic indecisiveness
In Twelfth Night the relationships are anything but romantic. Shakespeare writes from the male point of view which implies an un-easy split between love and physical charm. In Twelfth night the romance is falsely produced by selfish desire. Duke Orsino and Viola stand out from the other relationships. By questioning the relationships between the other couples, Shakespeare highlights the true love between Viola and Orsino and the fake relationship of Malvolio and Olivia which is truly based on Malvolio’s desire of a higher status , despite his status and his personality , Malvolio tries to impress Olivia by dressing up in ridiculous clothes , which does far from his aim , and repulses Olivia.
Finally, Olivia officially tells Viola (Caesario) that she loves him after Viola delivers another message to Olivia. Olivia tells Caesario that she has been in love with him ever since she first saw him, and that she cannot hold it anymore. She cares not about what her society would think about her for falling in love with a person not from her class. The reader knows that Viola is not interested at all in Olivia since she is in love with Orsino. Lady Olivia’s love for Caesario illustrates a universal truth about life that when someone is in love, he/she will do whatever it takes to show the other person that they love them. They are willing to sacrifice everything they’ve got for their love. In this case, Olivia is sacrificing her social status and reputation.
Although Viola might be able to relate to Olivia's grief at first, her love for Orsino is so great that she cannot understand why Olivia would deny him. When Olivia expresses affectio...
...h the idea of being in love and enjoys making a spectacle of himself. His attraction to the ostensibly male Cesario injects sexual ambiguity into his character, and reveals that genuine love does exist within his character because he allows himself for that brief scene to be exposed and vulnerable. Olivia, like Orsino likes to wallow I her own misery, and also acts absurdly by falling for Cesario within a matter of a few moments of dialogue. Olivia seems to have no difficulty transporting her affections from one love interest to the next, however, suggesting that her romantic feelings, like most emotions in the play, are not profound. In all, Shakespeare used Twelfth Night to reveal that love can be found in unlikely places; in order for love to be a genuine act it must be a selfless; and love undoubtedly requires patience and endurance through times of absurdity,.
Because of this confusing love triangle, some of the characters seem to view love as a curse. They also claim to suffer painfully from being in love or from the “pangs” of unrequited love. In Act 1 scene 5, Olivia describes love as a “plague” from which she suffers terribly. In Act 1 scene 1, Orsino depicts love dolefully as an “appetite” that he wants to satisfy and cannot. Another example of the characters not “liking” love is in Act 2 scene 2 when Viola says “My state is desperate for my master’s love.” This quote relates to the violence in Act 5 scene 1 when Orsino threatens to kill Cesario because he thin...
According to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, love is defined as “strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties; attraction based on sexual desire; affection and tenderness felt by lovers; affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interest; or an assurance of love.” In William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, three different types of love are experienced: friendship love, true love, and self love. Each character experiences a different type of love, and in some cases it is not what they originally expected. The twisted, yet intriguing love story allows the reader to get lost in each characters emotions and development throughout the play. Many instances of love in the play are overwhelmed with a feeling of desire, which leads some characters to fall blind to their true love. Viola, Cesario, Orsino, Olivia, Sebastian and Malvolio, all experience love in a variety of different ways, which adds depth to Shakespeare’s comical play.
Throughout Twelfth Night, disguise and mistaken identity works as a catalyst for confusion and disorder which consistently contributes towards the dramatic comic genre of the play. Many characters in Twelfth Night assume disguises, beginning with Viola, who disguises herself as a man in order to serve Orsino, the Duke. By dressing his protagonist in male garments, Shakespeare creates ongoing sexual confusion with characters, which include Olivia, Viola and Orsino, who create a ‘love triangle’ between them. Implicitly, there is homoerotic subtext here: Olivia is in love with a woman, despite believing her to be a man, and Orsino often comments on Cesario’s beauty, which implies that he is attracted to Viola even before her male disguise is removed. However, even subsequent to the revealing of Viola’s true identity, Orsino’s declares his love to Viola implying that he enjoys lengthening the pretence of Vio...
Orsino quickly dismisses it by claiming that his love swallows him like the sea. Therefore, he is lost and is powerless at his loves will. He then continues, “Make no compare between that love a woman can bear me and the love I owe Olivia.”. This passage is much like the irony we see in many of Shakespeare 's comedy since the very person he is talking to loves him the way he described. With these two things in mind we see that love is blinding and can easily fool someone. Orsino is so caught up with Olivia he never sees Viola. Likewise, Viola is so in love with Orsino that she obeys him completely without ever revealing herself to him. These blind actions of love drive all the major action in the play. In fact, the longest portion of the play is Orsino sending his servant, Viola in disguise as Cesario, to beg Olivia for some form of love in return. However, Orsino never until the very end of the play actually goes over to Olivia’s house himself. If he is so deeply in love with her why doesn’t he go himself? It seems as though he loves the idea of her more than actually loving
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare is considered to be one of his greatest romantic comedies, and has been praised for his cunning and witty use of disguised identity. Taking place in a land known as Illyria, the romantic comedy centers around the protagonist, Viola, who disguises herself as a male for her safety after a shipwreck, in which she assumes her brother has died. While working in the house of Duke the Orsino under the name Caesario, she falls in love with him, and also wishes to win the affections of the Duke, who is desperately in love with the Countess Olivia. A number of love triangles form, which results in various forms of live being shown through each of the play’s main characters. Twelfth Night plays upon its main characters, showing them each as rather unsatisfactory lovers, with the exception of Viola, who is the embodiment of true love. Despite the fact that the play ends happily, each of the main characters find themselves feeling some sort of pain, and view love of as a type of curse. Many characters suffer from lovesickness, and also endure the pain of unrequited love. In this essay I will dissect each of the main characters in Twelfth Night as lovers, and explain why each of them is more absurd than the rest.
Love however, is the source of much confusion and complication in another of Shakespeare’s comedies, Twelfth Night. Men and women were seen as very different from each other at the time the play was written, they were therefore also treated in very different ways. Because of this Viola conceals her identity and adopts the role of a man, in order to better her safety whilst being alone on the island, and to get a job at Count Orsino’s court. In the play Shakespeare uses the gender confusion he has created from obscuring characters identities to explore the limits of female power and control within courtship, and their dominance within society. Violas frustration surrounding her inability to express her feelings to the Count because she is a woman is an example of the limiting rules of courtship which were upheld at the time. (Aside) ‘yet, a barful strife! Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife.’ Here she is already expressing her anxiety and emotion at being a woman, and having to keep her emotions hidden from those around her. She longs to be able to express her love as a man could, and in her disguise as Cesario she finds an opportunity to vent her feelings for the Count, but concealed as his words and towards Olivia. Viola is unaware of how her words may sound to Olivia because she is aware of their gender boundaries however Olivia isn’t and soon falls for Cesario. Because Olivia is a Lady and head of the household, and especially how she lacks a father figure, she has a lot more freedom in courtship. Duisinberre comments on this saying, ‘...Viola and Beatrice are women set free from their fathers, and their voice is that of the adult world.’ This is seen when Olivia immediately takes the dominant role in her and Cesarios relat...