The Stereotypes Of Love In Shakespeare's The Twelfth Night

For most people, love is a building for that combines both the strengths and weaknesses of two people, helping them change and better themselves. However, in some cases, what people believe as love is simply desire and infatuation. Throughout the 1300’s, a poet named Petrarch wrote a series of love sonnets to his idealized lover, Laura. In his sonnets, Petrarch characterizes a type of love now known as either courtly love or Petrarchan love. This type of love relates closer to infatuation, as the people involve idealize the stereotypes of love rather than the actual character of the person they are pursuing. Additionally, Petrarchan lovers often idolize each other as gods, worshipping and comparing each other to holy or celestial objects. Many

In the opening lines of the play, Shakespeare introduces the reader to Orsino, with the famous lines: “If music be the food of love, play on; / Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, / The appetite may sicken, and so die” (The Twelfth Night 1.1.1-3). Unlike many of Shakespeare’s lovesick characters, Orsino begins speaking about love as a concept, rather than the object of his love. For example, when the reader first meets Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, he laments his unrequited feelings for Rosalind. Instead, Shakespeare chooses for Orsino to focus on loving the feeling of being in love. However, love needs a face to feel validated, and “Orsino requires an external stimulant… to animate his experience of himself as one who is loved…and it is the Countess Olivia who is the woman most suitable to feeding this need.” (Gross 206). Orsino is obsessed with the idea of love, the courtly atmosphere, and of course, himself. As such, he decorates his court in dim lighting, lounges around without performing duties of the state, and melancholily waits for Olivia to love him