The Bittersweet Comedy of Twelfth Night Essay

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:

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.

Music permeates Twelfth Night immediately in Act 1 Scene 2 with Orsino’s opening declaration of love ‘ If music be the food of love, play on’ (lines 1-2), through this he is established and characterised as an extravagant lover, indulging in his hyperbolic passion for a woman who does not return his love. His language is full of romantic clichés such as ‘…was I turn’d into a hart’ (line 21), this metaphor allows Shakespeare to not only intensify the exploration of the genre of

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

The moment I have decided to write about is right after the ship wreck leading into Violas transformation. In theatre Calgary’s interpretation of “Twelfth Night”, the director took a much more comedic and modern twist on the play in the use of modern references and the elimination of most tragic scenes from the performance. The standard script was seamlessly turned into a silly classic due to the amazing designs of Old Trout Puppet Workshop, and the ability to make the simplest things comedic. A lot of their set and costumes where based off of puppetry. This became a key component in the ship wrecking scene, when you saw a tiny vessel filled with heads to resemble a ship floating across a massive painted landscape of the moving sea. The heads where incredibly large compared to the size of the ship which made it quite the comedic scene. The vessel was skillfully

While both are absorbed in their own melancholy moods, Orsino does it for the love he desires and Olivia does it for loved ones she's lost. Despite their opposing approaches towards wooing, they both end up with a love of their own. Another interesting counterbalance is between the captain and Antonio. The captain saved Viola, but after accepting money to help her, he went his separate way, never expressing feelings for her. In contrast, Antonio rescued Sebastian, then gave him money and followed him, all the while expressing love for him.

Duke Orsino’s repeated usage of poetical verse and poetic devices to describe his woes from love set him

In his play the Twelfth Night, Shakespeare uses Lady Olivia to illustrate the complexities of love and courtship by altering the gender roles of Elizabethan society. In the beginning of the play, Olivia has recently lost her husband. Due to her unbearable grief, she commits herself to seclusion and celibacy for the next seven years. In the meantime, the powerful nobleman Orsino has fallen madly in love with Olivia. As Olivia exhibits passiveness and becomes the object of desire of a

Twelfth Night consists of many different love triangles - the characters are blinded by love as they disregard their true emotions and feelings towards one another. This is when self-deceivement occurs. However, there are instances in the play where the emotion of love is true. To begin, Viola’s love for Orsino is one instance where true love occurs. Even though she is in a disguise as a man and she is unknown in Illyria, she hopes to win the Duke’s heart.

With every good story, there must be reason to the madness. With every great story, the audience is left to question their own thoughts over time. But what really makes a story great? Is it love and good will throughout where in the end nearly everyone is happy and all is well? Shakespeare’s play, Twelfth Night, or What You Will is an example of exactly this happy ending story. Or is it the taboo and transgressions of a story’s characters that make it great? Such as in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet; the deceitful actions of betrayal, death and incestuous behavior of the characters certainly leave the audience asking question far after the play has ended. What is the meaning? (Beha BR18) The characters in Shakespeare’s Hamlet are very diverse in personality and in their roles. Herein lie the questions: How do the characters differ and how do their roles impact others and ultimately affect the play?

Twelfth Night, written by William Shakespeare, has been called a masterpiece of Shakespeare's comic play. Additionally, it constructed a prototype of the modern romantic comedy. In Twelfth Night, various kinds of love is portrayed such as unrequited love, homosexual love, and so on. This essay mainly focuses on the love relationship between Viola and Orsino. I chose this theme because I wondered why Orsino suddenly gave up Olivia and decided to marry Viola at the end of the play.

a plan to dress as a man and seek employment with the Duke Orsino. It

At first he pleads for the “excess of it, that, surfeiting” (I.i.2). For, music nourishes the soul; therefore he wants more of it. However, later in the soliloquy Orsino says that because of love, music “tis not so sweet now as it is before” (8). Shakespeare is already showing how Orsino tries to force passionate love for Olivia that it is not as sweet and fulfilling as it should be if it was genuine true love. This theme goes throughout the play and even comically plays out in Olivia’s forged love for Malvolio. Any type of false love in Twelfth Night comes to a crash landing at the end.

One reason why Twelfth Night reinforces the class system is because of the representation of satisfying the audience to please them. In the 16th century, audiences looked for comedy as an option for entertainment. Twelfth Night brought upon these amuses through the use of Sir Toby and Maria. The play created chaos by mixing up the classes and putting the “wrong” people together. Maria is Olivia lady in waiting while Sir Toby is one of Olivia's kinsman who by the end of the play end up together. At the moment since Maria is waiting for her rank she does not have a title and she picked the man to be wedded to. Usually, the countess picks a suitable man for her ladies to be married to, allowing for little progression to be made. Readers and critics assume since Sir Toby is drunk for every hour of the day his title of being a knight does not really define who he is and is acceptable for him to end up with anyone he pleases to. From “Rethinking Sexuality and Class in Twelfth Night.” author Nancy Lindheim writes, “It offers a reason other than cynicism or folly for his [Sir Toby] marrying Maria: who could be more suitable for him than 'as witty a piece of Eve's flesh as any in Illyria' (1.5.27)?...Sir Toby's circumstances, intelligence, and wit might then encourage us to think that it can happen”. More specifically, Lindheim means that the play does show little hope on the change of the social class system since Sir Toby was looking for somebody with wit and not just beauty. This

Twelfth Night channelizes the spirit of festivity and celebration associated with the ‘Feast of Epiphany’, which in Elizabethan England was marked as the finale of Christmas jubilations. In it’s own way mirroring the society and it’s indulgence in feasting, drinking and the carnal pleasures which in their own right undermined the teachings of the church. It is hard to overlook the emphasis laid on indulgence and the excess of it. Characteristically a Shakespearean comedy the plot is driven by the desires of the characters and the fulfilment of those desires. But unlike other comedies (for instance, As You like It) not all characters in Twelfth night are allowed to actualise their desires. These desires guide the characters to determine the course of the play.