Duke Orsino And Unrequited Love In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

     Unlike the other characters in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night", Viola's feelings of love are genuine. She is not mistaken about Orsino's true nature and loves him for who he really is, while the other characters in the play seem to be in love with an illusion. Viola's love for Orsino does not alter during the play, nor is it transferred to another person.

wonder if he is really interested in her or just this idea he has of

The Duke has little to no patience and Feste tries to make him aware of this flaw.  Feste believes that people are better off due to their enemies and worse because of their friends.  He explains that a person's enemy will tell them the truth, where a person's friend will lie to them and not make them aware of a personal flaw they may have.  Orsino displays his short patience through his obsession with Olivia.  He sends Cesario, his messenger, to Olivia's house daily to try to win her love over.  She sees his messenger so often because of Orsino's constant persistence that she ends up falling in love with Cesario and not the Duke.  Feste attempts to convince Orsino to stop obsessing over Olivia and try broadening his thoughts of who he loves.  Feste endeavora to help Duke Orsino, but he does not welcome the constructive criticism given to him by the clown.

A major similarity between She’s the Man and The Twelfth Night is the love triangle that

The fantasy of Olivia he supposedly unconditionally loves is not about Olivia, but all about himself. Not only this, but Orsino is easily convinced to return the deep affection of Viola, possibly because the Duke focuses entirely on his success and desires in love rather than genuine affection. Perhaps, Orsino only developed these feelings for Olivia because he wanted more luxurious things in life. Orsino had great food, servants, and a giant castle. The one thing he lacked in was love. Therefore, the Duke wished to have the most beautiful countess in all of the land: Olivia, to continue owning more and more luxurious things. Through this, Shakespeare conveys that an egotist and wealthy man cannot genuinely love if he does not fixate the gain of love on himself. Not only this, but it also continues the previous message that one might be irrationally obsessed with the idea of love rather than a person due to all of the pleasures there are to

The fantasy of Olivia he “unconditionally loves” is not about Olivia, but all about himself. Not only this, but Orsino is easily convinced to return the deep affection of Viola, possibly because the Duke focuses entirely on his success and desires in love rather than genuine affection. Perhaps, Orsino only developed these feelings for Olivia because he wanted more luxurious things in life. Orsino had great food, servants, and a giant castle. The one thing he lacks is love. Therefore, the Duke wished to have the most beautiful countess in all of the land: Olivia, to continue owning more and more luxurious things. Through this, Shakespeare conveys that an egotist and wealthy man cannot genuinely love if only fixates on the gain of love for himself. Shakespeare is also demonstrating superficial love versus genuine love, and he illustrates the notion that a man who is too narcissistic cannot think about love beyond his erotic fantasies. Instead, Shakespeare conveys through Viola, wherein she genuinely loves Orsino for who he is and does not love for the sake of love's desire itself. She stays committed to Orsino over Countess

Viola is the main character in both works, who disguises herself as a male to fit into an area where men typically dominate. Duke Orsino is the main romantic interest to Viola in Twelfth Night and She’s the Man; a man who is hopelessly in love with Lady Olivia, who pays no attention to him because she is infatuated with Viola’s male identity. Next to the characters, the plot in both works are nearly identical: the female lead, Viola, wishes to conquer gender inequalities and pretends to be a male, only to gain the affections of a fairly popular woman, Olivia. Meanwhile, Viola harbors feelings for the male lead, Orsino, who desires the heart of Olivia. Both stories end with Viola and Sebastian ending up in the same place with the rest of the characters, bring a disturbing but satisfying conclusion to all the disorder. This confusing love triangle is what fuels the film and its Shakespearean source, and runs as the theme in both stories. With a female protagonist interested in a male lead, who in turn is interested in a female side character that is interested in the gender-bent identity of the protagonist, only confusion and chaos is to ensue. It is this confusion that spreads through all of the characters outside of Viola, Orsino, and Olivia, and propels the actions of many characters in both Twelfth Night and She’s the

One can observe Orsino's love for Olivia as obsessive. Orsino’s first words “If music be the food of love, play on,” introduce him as a love-sick character whose mind revolves around a woman who does not return his feelings (I.i.1). Olivia constantly populates his mind and he does not cease his pursuit for her love, even after she expresses distaste towards him. Shakespeare mocks love-sick individuals for acting like fools and putting themselves through misery. After learning of Olivia’s marriage, Orsino realizes he has lost her and lashes out at Cesario. He threatens him by stating “I’ll sacrifice the lamb I do love to spite a raven’s heart within a dove”(V.i.33-34). Shakespeare uses Orsino’s love for Olivia to differentiate between good and bad love. Unrequited love can cause an individual to pursue violent actions in blind rage. Orsino shows how love is consuming, crippling, and hinders the ability to live out life.Orsino believes his love for Olivia is true, but he is actually in love with the idea of love, and believes he can only obtain it from Olivia. Shakespeare tries to inform the audiences that they could mistakenly believe they are in

Another aspect of the play that can easily relate to modern audiences is, William Shakespeare’s use of mistaken identities and true-life experiences especially mourning for the loss of family and love obsessions, are among the main focuses of the play. Many people in the audience of today would most likely be able to relate to Olivia’s intense mourning of her brother, since people’s feelings and actions at the time of loss don’t change just the periods of times that they occur do. Love is commonly used in many forms of works of entertainment because it is an unsolved mystery that everyone usual enjoys watching or reading. The infatuation that the Duke has for Olivia is comical throughout the play and forces the Duke to say

Twelfth Night is a romantic comedy, and romantic love is the play’s main focus. Despite the fact that the play offers a happy ending, in which the various lovers find one another and achieve wedded bliss, Shakespeare shows that love can cause pain. Many of the characters seem to view love as a kind of curse, a feeling that attacks its victims suddenly and disruptively. Various characters claim to suffer painfully from being in love, or, rather, from the pangs of unrequited love. At one point, Orsino depicts love dolefully as an “appetite” that he wants to satisfy and cannot, at another point; he calls his desires “fell and cruel hounds”. Olivia more bluntly describes love as a

perfect she is and how his love is in a very flowery way, “my love,

Yet he still continues to get a “yes” from Olivia. He grows rambunctious and upset when he says.” O’ she hath the heart of a fine frame, to pay the debt of love but to a dead brother” ( Shakespeare page 11 33-34) He lacks sympathy towards Olivia for her problems, but he has time to listen to his own desires. Nonetheless rather grieving with her, he goes and gives her his words of love. Duke Orsino knows that Olivia is unsure and this is an act of selfishness. Furthermore, he craves something he can’t have, Olivia’s love. Love is to crave to the extreme, it’s hunger that lovers hope they can never fully

In Shakespeare’s play, Twelfth Night or What you Will, the characters are involved in a plot complete with trickery, disguise, and love. Each character is defined not by his or her gender or true identity, but by the role they are forced to take because of the complicated situation that arises. Unlike their gender, the speech the characters give an insight to their true personalities. In the Twelfth Night, the character Duke Orsino uses flowery and over-dramatic language, long poetic sentence structure, and melodramatic metaphors to display his overemotional romantic nature despite the different emotions in his various speeches.

Shakespeare presents Orsino as furious and irritated at Olivia’s constant refusal of his love and starts noticing how Olivia is not the perfect woman he claims she is while discreetly implying a shift of his romantic feelings for someone else (Cesario/Viola).

Twelfth Night, Or What You Will, written by Shakespeare during the Elizabethan era, centers around the convoluted and shifting nature of love. The play makes a point that the ways in which love and affection are expressed and interpreted differ amongst the different social classes. Count Orsino and Lady Olivia, representing the upper class of the nobility, demonstrate their love in grand, impersonal gestures, whereas Viola, whose status is slightly lower, does so in a selfless, more authentic manner. This stark difference in how these two classes perceive love is also seen in how quickly the feelings of Orsino and Olivia change for their love interests once someone new comes along. The nobility has little to no sense of what genuine love is, which is seen in both their frivolous displays of affection and how quickly they are able to fall for someone new.