Twelfth Night Love Analysis

Improved Essays
While many people view love as a state of bliss and carefree enjoyment, those entangled in a hopeless situation yearn to escape its cruel grasp. When loves ensnares someone, he or she often acts uncontrollably and thinks delirious thoughts. Shakespeare explores the ridiculous responses to love through a hopeless love triangle in his play Twelfth Night. At the beginning of the play, Count Orsino of Illyria mopes around his home and pines for the grieving lady Olivia by sending messengers to her to express his feelings. Viola arrives on the island due to a shipwreck, and enters Orsino’s household as a servant under the disguise of a eunuch named Cesario. She begins to break Orsino out of his self-involved shell, but he never undergoes an obvious …show more content…
During the first scene, Duke Orsino expresses the idea of love 's excess: “If music be the food of love, play on;/ Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,/ The appetite may sicken, and so die.” (1.1.1-3). Orsino is sick with love for lady Olivia, who vows to mourn for her dead brother for seven years. In his chamber, he listens to the court musicians perform a love song. Bidding them to play on, he hopes the music will increase his feeling of love until he is sick of it. He believes that overindulgence will break the obsession, and thus release him from the pain of unanswered affection. At last, he orders the music to stop, judging that it is not as sweet as when it first began: he grew sick of the music but not love. Orsino cannot imagine a limit to love’s capacity. In his next metaphor, he compares love’s capacity with the sea: “O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou,/ That, notwithstanding thy capacity/ Receiveth as the sea” (1.1.9-11). Like the sea that ceases to rise no matter how much water rivers and rain add, Orsino’s love for Olivia cannot overflow, regardless of the amount of passion he pours into her. He acknowledges that as the sea level changes with the rise and fall of the tides, love behaves likewise without changing capacity. After he finishes his speech, his messenger Valentine arrives to announce that Olivia refuses company because she is still in mourning after the death of her brother. Orsino is content to wait, but vows that he will not abandon his quest for Olivia’s

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In the play Romeo and Juliet By William Shakespeare the main characters Romeo and Juliet fall into a forbidden love with each other. The playwright, William shakespeare keeps a key information hidden from the reader. William Shakespeare maybe keeps this information hidden to keep the story a mystery, Why would a playwright conceal this information from us? In the play the two wealthiest families in Verona are enemies, but the audience never finds out why.…

    • 304 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    True lovers care about each other, and try to make each other feel better during the toughest times. When one expresses fondness, they do not attempt to be selfish or try to take advantage of the one they love, like what Orsino does. Again, in 5.1, Orsino is trying to take advantage of Olivia, by being greedy. When Orsino finds out Olivia is in love with Viola-Cesario, Orsino says: “Why should I not – had I heart to do it - / Like to th’Egyptian thief at point of death / Kill what I love – a savage jealousy” (5.1.106-08). If Orsino has true affection over Olivia, he would not threaten to kill her just because she is in love with another man.…

    • 1144 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    As Orsino lounges listening to music he reflects on his excess of love for Olivia and describes her as so beautiful that “she purge[s] the air of pestilence/ [and his] desires, like fell and cruel hounds/ E’er since pursue”(4) him. Throughout the entire play Olivia is described to be excessively beautiful and it can be interpreted as Shakespeare celebrating beauty in the spirit of the Renaissance. Orsino also comments, in his monologue on the beauty of music. That music “came o’er [his] ear like the sweet sound/…

    • 1586 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In the Twelfth Night he’s a handsome, rich Bachelor who is very poetic and is honestly just in love with love. His first line in the play shows how he feels about love, “If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting (1.1.1) His passion for love echoes to Voila and she begins to fall in love with him, which doesn’t work in her favor because he thinks she’s a man. He is head over heels in love with Olivia which bring him and Viola closer in the attempts that Viola might help Olivia fall in love with him. This leaves Viola caught in the middle of a love triangle, but not in the way she would like. Gacefully she helps Olivia with the grieving of her father and brother and shows Orisno what love is really like, not the fantasy’s that he developed in this head about Olivia.…

    • 1153 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Lord, what fools these mortals be!”(Shakespeare,91) A Midsummer Night’s Dream is set both in Athens and also in the forest. Hermia is the daughter of Egeus, a nobleman from Athens, who approves of her marrying Demetrius. Hermia is not in love with Demetrius and wants to marry Lysander. The problem is that Egeus does not approve.…

    • 347 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Olivia In Twelfth Night

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Twelfth Night, a play by William Shakespeare, is about a love triangle between Duke Orsino, Viola, and the Countess Olivia where Orsino is trying to woo Olivia, who refuses his advances because she is mourning the death of her brother; Viola is in love with Orsino, but can’t show her affection since she is disguised as a man; and Olivia is in love with Viola disguised as Cesario. After all sorts of different complications getting in between their love for each other, Olivia marries Viola’s brother, Sebastian who was believed to be dead, and Viola and Orsino marry each other. I usually don’t enjoy reading plays, but Twelfth Night is an exception. It is witty, funny, and has a wonderful romantic plot despite its hard-to-follow Shakespearean…

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    William Shakespeare did not become arguably the most famous playwright in the history of the world for coloring inside the lines. In each one of his complex plays, he pushes against the boundaries of social norms. Shakespeare incorporates bold discussions of fleeting love, gender uncertainty, mistaken identity, and ironic comedy into his creative plots during the 1600’s when public discussion on such progressive ideas were rare. In his comedy Twelfth Night, Shakespeare uses dialogue between his three main characters, Viola, Orsino, and Olivia, to express his critique on the strict nature of gender roles during his time. Through his manipulation of his characters’ identities, his placement of women in leadership positions, and his questioning of traditional gender roles, Shakespeare reveals his theme that strict definitions of gender reinforce false stereotypes of both men and women.…

    • 1503 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he strides to portray the tides of love! But even for Shakespeare, It’s quite hard to grasp the understanding of love for theirs always arising complications that get in the way of lustful love; Throughout the play Shakespeare undermines the notion that true love even ever existed. The play is directed in Athens of Greece. And is made to make the audience question what they know is love; it starts out with unhappiness for Hermia is getting no choice in who she loves, for her father, Egeus is her creator and must abide by his wishes of whom she’ll marry or love; If she doesn’t marry Demetrious her father’s approved choice, Theseus the Duke of Athens will have her put to death by Egeus’s…

    • 1037 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Antonio, despite the dangers he foresees in pursuing Sebastian to Orsino’s court, follows the man which caused chaos and misunderstanding when he takes Cesario for Sebastian. The deeply self-loving Malvolio makes a fool of himself by following the instructions of the joke letter written by Maria. So, what doth thee bethink of love…

    • 747 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    ”(Nunn 0:20:03) This shows that Duke Orsino is a complete romantic, he is confessing his love for Olivia to Cesario which is not typical for a man in that time period to do. Duke Orsino shows female assets like being a romantic and showing that he has a sort of unpredictable sense about him. Sir.…

    • 1270 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Twelfth Night is a romantic comedy with unrequited love being one of the main focal points of the play. Despite the fact that resolutions are sought resulting in the play ending happily, where after much confusion, lovers come together, Shakespeare heavily focuses on when love does not work out as one may wish and the heartache it can bring. He shows the lengths characters will go to, for the ones they love even though it may bring them pain. This idea is brought to life Trevor Nunn’s 1996 film adaption of Shakespeare’s, “Twelfth Night.”…

    • 1334 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It’s usually girl falls for boy, and they live happily ever after. But in this case, the girl unknowingly falls for the girl, and is doomed to never get the love returned, in other words, Olivia’s love is a sad and unrequited one, which is similar to the unrequited love of Orsino and Viola. After the initial reveal of her looks, Olivia requests Viola to leave, and tell Orsino to stop sending messages. That is, different messengers. Olivia making the request of not wanting another messenger just…

    • 1936 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Twelfth Night is a play which does not end happily for all its characters. Did this add to or take away from your enjoyment of the end of the play? In the concluding act of ‘Twelfth Night’, Act Five, there is a mix of emotions for all of the characters. During closing stages of the play, several of the characters are unhappy and confused, whilst others are happy and excited.…

    • 610 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The more frequent Cesario shows up to see Olivia to deliver the messages from Orsino, the more interested Olivia becomes of Cesario. It got so serious that Olivia actually feels like she’s in love with him/her. It escalated to the point that Olivia became obsessed with Cesario and would give herself entirely to him/her. As Cesario and Orsino were getting to know each other it started off as master and messenger. Cesario simply just took Orison’s letters to its destination.…

    • 783 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This adds to the romantic comedy part of the play as Shakespeare has created a typical setting for the plot to develop and for characters to begin getting involved with one another further. The play appears to be more humorous as the plot develops due to the fact that Orsino is rather direct with letting Olivia know how he feels by sending 'Cesario '. This is also a feature that is common in typical romantic comedy in which there would be additional characters that try to help the relationship deepen, perhaps even getting more involved than they had intended to be, as was the case with…

    • 1419 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays

Related Topics