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,
Shakespeare uses many different themes to present love; relationships, conflict, magic, dreams and fate. Overall, he presents it as something with the ability to make us act irrationally and foolishly. Within A Midsummer Night's Dream we see many examples of how being 'in love' can cause someone to change their perspective entirely. 'The path of true love never did run smooth' is a comment made from one of the main characters, Lysander, which sums up the play's idea that lovers always face difficult hurdles on the path to happiness and will usually turn them into madmen.
However the idea of love is faked by the use of the magical love juice which confuses their love and makes the victim fall uncontrollably in love with the first person or animal they see which represents the idea of love in real life, humans can fall stupidly in love with someone and have no choice or a way of stopping it because it’s natural. The use of love strongly mimics the idea of love in real life and Shakespeare is trying to portray the reality of humans; how ‘true love’ is an illusion and every human being has a different perspective of it. The idea of reality and fantasy is important because during the times that the play was written was in the Elizabethan era and they strongly believed in the fantasy world; fairies and the devil. The play uses dramatic irony and this was an important part of a comedy because it shows that the audience know more than the characters producing humour, almost like a pantomime (when the audience shout things out at the actors to tell them what’s happening).
Different Kinds of Love in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night Twelfth Night, in itself, portrays many hidden meanings and themes that speak out to different people, in different ways. Shakespeare makes use of the many characters, and choreographs different steps and creates relationships and the plot, and sub- plot, to make Twelfth Night complete, with its many themes. One of the central messages of this play is prominently, love. With this main theme, Shakespeare creates an interesting plot and sub-plot, to entertain, and also provoke his audience to think hard, and allow them to decide for themselves, which kind of love is one that they would choose in their own lives.
Lust, which is probably one of the most confusing types of love was an apparent subject in twelfth night.There are many reasons why one would lust, one could be because you are attracted to a specific quality of a person or could maybe only like there looks or even just thing like there charisma. Shakespeare showed lust between Orsino and Olivia. Even though Orsino had not met or even seen Olivia, he was still madly in love
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.
In act 4 of Twelfth Night, Shakespeare continuously keeps show us that love is risky and is it there love you like or there appearance. In act 4 scene 1 sir Andrews comes in and thinks Sebastian is cesario and decides to fight him. As they were fighting Olivia comes in and stops the fight. Olivia is thinking Sebastian is cesario and asks him to run away with her. Shakespeare here is showing why love is risky.
This quote occurs at the beginning of the play as lovestruck Orsino tells his servants, “If music be the food of love, play on” Shortly after this quote, Orsino asks for his musicians to play a lot of music so that he will overdose and no longer desire love from Olivia anymore. Through these words, Shakespeare introduces the image of love as a plague that/ nobody wants. He also makes the image that love is like something that sneaks up to people, and through that it becomes easily unavoidable. Through this, the audience gathers a question of whether romantic love has more to do with the reality of the person who is loved of with the lovers own imagination. For Orsino and Olivia , imagination seems to be more powerful
William Shakespeare regularly called the English national writer, is generally viewed as the best playwright ever .William Shakespeare was immersed on April 26, 1564, in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. From around 1594 forward he was a critical individual from the Lord Chamberlain's Men organization of showy players. Love in Shakespeare is an intermittent topic. The treatment of affection in Shakespeare's plays and poems is exceptional for the time: the Bard blends cultured adoration, solitary adoration, compassionate love and sexual affection with expertise and heart. Shakespeare does not return to the two-dimensional representations of affection run of the mill of the time, but instead investigates love as a non-consummate a portion of the
In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare is skeptical of love which is evident when you analyze the characters of Orsino and Malvolio. Orsino experiences the constant rejection of Olivia’s love while Malvolio on the other hand is blind to the fact that he is narcissistic. Viola’s character has the most genuine love within the cast of Twelfth Night since she is willing to put her own love for Orsino aside to try and woo Olivia into loving Orsino. Shakespeare uses numerous kinds of love throughout the play which include self-love, false love, and unrequited love which helps us differentiate between what both men and woman desire from love.
In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare uses the characters to demonstrate that some love is more genuine than others. Shakespeare’s skepticism of true love is evident when you analyze the characters of Orsino and Malvolio; however Viola’s character displays Shakespeare’s hopefulness in a purer form of love. Viola’s character has the most genuine love within the cast of Twelfth Night since she is willing to put her own love for Orsino aside to try and woo Olivia into loving Orsino. Orsino experiences the constant rejection of Olivia’s love while Malvolio, on the other hand, is blind to the fact that he is narcissistic. Shakespeare uses numerous kinds of love throughout the play, which include self-love, imagined love, unrequited love, pure love. These
In Shakespeare's play, “Twelfth Night”, it takes the characters and gives them a bit of both worlds through gender confusion and transgression and much more. Characters disguising as the opposite gender, others falling in love with the same gender without knowing who they truly are, and suddenly feeling a sexual desire with the same sex. Shakespeare's knew love is a kinding heart, a passion, and happy proportions, sentimental not tender. His lovers always looked forward to marriage. The love never runs smoothly. The play begins with the lines “if the music be the food of love, give me excess of it”. (Shakespeare. Act 1, Scene 1,line 1) Meaning to fully satisfy one’s
to act on being someone else, but they are not doing a good job. The
The main focus of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy The Twelfth Night is, fittingly, love. Despite the fact that the play ends in happiness, and marriage, the characters are not always this happy throughout the entire play. Love seems to be a curse in this play rather than a blessing, and it may seem that love causes more problems than it solves most of the time. All of the characters in Twelfth Night are affected by love in some way, and most of the time it is not the “right” love. For example, the main plot of the play is the love triangle between Olivia, Violet, and Duke Orsino. This love triangle causes mass chaos and confusion for the characters, mainly because of the misunderstandings. At the start of the play, Orsino is in love with Olivia, who is mourning her brother, and has no interest in the duke. In turn, Viola, who is in disguise as eunuch named Cesario is in love with Orsino. To round out the triangle, Olivia is in love with Viola, who she believes is really Cesario. The misunderstandings love causes for Orsino, Olivia, and Viola may even cause more suffering than happiness, despite the fact that the play ends in marriages.
At the beginning of the play Shakespeare allows Duke Orsino to create an ideal image that he is in love with the thought of just being in love as he makes a comparison to love and music;
Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night’s beginning scene can be portrayed in many different ways. Act I, Scene I opens with Orsino discussing that if music makes people more in love than he wants to be overwhelmed with it so he becomes sick of music (love). During the scene he asks the musician to stop playing since there is no way it compares to music. In productions of this scene, the director’s choices for the setting, Orsino’s attitude, and the use of music set the tone for the rest of the play while also displaying different interpretations of Shakespeare’s commentary about music and love.