How Is Twelfth Night Courtly Love

Love is a timeless topic. It will forever be the theme of popular entertainment and source of confusion for men and women alike. No one understands this better than William Shakespeare, and he frequently explores this complex emotion in his plays. In "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" Shakespeare cleverly reveals the fickle and inebriating aspects of love through his mischievous character Puck.

Orsino's love, however, is a courtly love. He claims to be in love with Olivia but seems rather to be in love with the idea of love and the behavior of a lover. Orsino is a Petrachan lover who chooses an object that will not return his love. Because he is not ready for commitment, he courts Olivia in a formal way. By sending his messengers to her house instead of going himself, he does not have to speak to her directly. Early in the play, Viola realises that Orsino's love for Olivia is denied and that she would also reject all men for a period of seven years. Viola believes that Orsino might not be rejected if he visited Olivia himself and says to him: "I think not so, my lord," but Orsino, not wanting to see Olivia himself and wanting to keep up the role of the disappointed lover, insists that Cesario woo her.

When love is in attendance it brings care, faith, affection and intimacy. This is proved true in the spectacular play A Midsummer Night's Dream written by William Shakespeare. This play displays the facts about lust, hatred, jealousy and their roles in something powerfully desirable. It is entitled love. Love is present everywhere, in every form, in every condition and even when one least expects it.

Most of the major characters in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night experience some form of love or marriage. Whether it’s unrequited like with Antonio and Malvolio, or it is something seemingly unattainable like with Duke Orsino. Regardless, it is clear that love is prevalent as one of the central themes Shakespeare seems to emphasize in Twelfth Night. With that, we see him communicate different interpretations and feelings regarding the subject. He does this with the medium of melodramatic characters. In this essay, I will elaborate on the opinions of love that Shakespeare communicates through one of the leading characters:

This inconsistency is embodied in the Twelfth Night when Orsino is irrational in his pursuit of beautiful Countess Olivia, yet he cedes her without regret or uncertainty. The duke then falls instantly in love with Viola, who was formerly known to him as a man named “Cesario.” Moreover, it almost seems as if Orsino enjoys the pain and suffering that comes with romance. He continues to engage himself in the quarrels of love while he states that it is an undying appetite, yet he can say that love “is so vivid and fantastical, nothing compares to it," implying that love is obsessive and bittersweet. Through this sudden change and obsession of love even through pain, Shakespeare communicates that love is something fantastic, pleasing and passionate, and our desires for these things lead our love lives to be obsessive, incoherent, excessive and unexpectedly

In William Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night, love as the cause of suffering is one of the most prominent theme of the story. Even though this play ends in love and wedded bliss, Shakespeare also shows us that love can also cause pain. The characters often view love as a curse, something that is thrust upon you and you cannot easily or willing escape. Examples include Malvolio’s love for Olivia, the love triangle between Olivia, Duke Orsino, and Viola as Cesario, and Antonio’s crush on Sebastian. There are countless occasions where unrequited love for another results in heartbreak and sorrow.

In the play twelfth night, Shakespeare covered three types of love : Lust, true love and brotherly love. Love is one of the most confusing and most misunderstood emotions that we as humans posses. Love is an extremely diverse emotion which is why it was used as the main topic in twelfth night.

Many describe unrequited love as a bee sting. At first nature blinds you with it’s beauty, but suddenly it strikes out and pain overwhelms you, feelings of betrayal and distrust linger. In William Shakespeare’s 1600s comedic play Twelfth Night, Olivia portrays how the rejection in unrequited love leads to violence and obsession, thereby, causing an individual to act irrational and vindictive.

In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare accurately describes the emotion of love through his depiction between false and true love. In order to understand the difference, just remember Feste’s question: “What is Love?” It is the “most simple and at the same time most complex of questions” (The English Review). Shakespeare might not answer this question in Twelfth Night, but he does accurately portray love throughout the play. Love is not simple, easy, or effortless. It is complicated, confusing, heartbreaking, and can lead to happiness all at the same time. The difference between the heartbreak and happiness is found between false or true love, and Shakespeare shows this difference throughout Twelfth

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

This is the set up of many situations, such as the meeting of Olivia and Viola in which Olivia falls very quickly in love with Cesario ‘even so quickly may one catch the plague’ this is an example of unrequited love, or the ‘melancholy lover’ a melancholy lover is a lover which suffers from his/her love. The other example of unrequited love is again because of mixed Identities, Viola the other ‘melancholy lover’ in the play, loves Orsino but Orsino cannot return that love because he thinks she is a man so never would think that she loves him, but she also cannot reveal her love to him because she would then have to reveal her true identity, which cannot be revealed until the right time. Cesario/Viola talks about how she knows how Orsino feels because “My father had a daughter loved a man,” Viola talks to Orisno about how her ‘sister’ loved a man that

Courtly love or domnei was a medieval European conception of nobly and chivalrously expressing love and admiration.[1] Generally, courtly love was secret and between members of the nobility.[2] It was also generally not practiced between husband and wife.[2][3]

According to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, love is defined as “strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties; attraction based on sexual desire; affection and tenderness felt by lovers; affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interest; or an assurance of love.” In William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, three different types of love are experienced: friendship love, true love, and self love. Each character experiences a different type of love, and in some cases it is not what they originally expected. The twisted, yet intriguing love story allows the reader to get lost in each characters emotions and development throughout the play. Many instances of love in the play are overwhelmed with a

Viola, one of the main protagonists, experiences suffering when she falls in love with Orsino, whom she cannot pursue or express her true feelings for. After a shipwreck, Viola finds herself stranded in the country of Illyria. In order to work for the Duke Orsino, she disguises herself as a man named Cesario, which makes romance with the duke impossible. After spending three days with him, she falls in love. Not only does she have to repress her feelings toward Orsino, but to add to her pain, Orsino assigns her to spend her time trying to persuade Lady Olivia to marry him. Viola says to the audience, “whoe’er I woo, myself would be his wife” (1.4.42), because she wishes to marry Orsino.

In 'Twelfth Night’, gender and sexuality in many ways add to the play’s themes of madness. 'Twelfth Night ' is a reflection of renaissance thought and culture, the renaissance was a transitional period from the medieval to the radical Elizabethan era. The culture of the time was a contradictory one, as from one aspect it was influenced by the patriarchal medieval time, where women were under the rule of men and seen as needing the protection of men, however, from another perspective, the culture was a changing one as women were starting to receive education and many humanists believed that women should be given more rights. The play reflects these attitudes and often challenges the social hierarchy and establishes ideas on gender roles, sexuality and cross-dressing. These factors indeed undermine the expectations of male and female behaviour, and in turn further the play 's theme of madness which has a comedic effect on the audience due to the shock humour it provides.