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How Does Shakespeare Present Love In Twelfth Night

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The opening speech in the play Twelfth Night is spoken by the unhappy, lovesick Duke of Orsino to his servants and musicians. In the eternally famous opening lines “If music be the food of love, play on…” Orsino asks his musicians to overload him abundantly with melodical love-food that he will totally detest the craving for love. In these lines, Shakespeare presents love as undesirable, something that creeps on people suddenly and it cannot be circumvented. Orsino comment about the connection between romance and imagination further complicates this image. He relates the idea of intense love (“fancy”) in“So full of shapes is fancy / That it alone is high fantastical,” to that of imagination (that which is “fantastical”). Through this link,

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