The Limitations Of Frye 's ' Green World '

William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is not simply a light-hearted comedy; it is a study of the abstract. Shakespeare shows that the divide between the dream world and reality is inconstant and oftentimes indefinable. Meanwhile, he writes about the power of the intangible emotions, jealousy and desire, to send the natural and supernatural worlds into chaos. Love and desire are the driving forces of this play’s plot, leaving the different characters and social classes to sort out the resulting pandemonium. While the overseeing nobles attack the predicament with poise and logic, the tradesmen and nobles stricken with love recede to foolishness. Yet, it is not the ‘wise’ nobles who find any truth within the haphazard happenings of

In studying William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will, it becomes clear that the theme of “Inside/Outside” is visible at many different levels. One of the comedic methods applied is the mistaken identity of Viola and Sebastian. Another case is Malvolio’s sudden change of character and clothes. Furthermore, Feste, who acts as a professional fool in the play, turns out to be a bright and wise character, against the expectations of the readers. Without these important elements where the characters show to be entirely different on the outside than on the inside, the play would be less intriguing, and moreover, they are essential to develop major scenes.

In spite of the promise of three weddings to be celebrated, the play concludes on a sour note when Feste, the clown, depicts life as grim, "for the rain it raineth every day" (Act V Scene i). They play’s primary central theme is that of the comic relationships between men and women. Furthermore, it illustrates the traditional, societal notions of “interdependence, and the newly emerging attitudes towards individual choice and personal desire, or as the play puts it, ‘will’” (Malcolmson 163). Although Twelfth Night is a story of love and courtship, nevertheless, it is also a “comedy of gender,” because of its ability to override the traditional Elizabethan notions of the female role through the characters of Viola and Olivia.

Romantic desire is struggle ingrained within William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, strained by the nature of homosexual love. The depths of human sexuality are explored in Twelfth Night through the relationships between Duke Orsino and Viola as Cesario, Olivia and Viola, and Sebastian and Antonio. Twelfth Night represents homoerotic love in both radical and conservative ways, while furthermore questioning the boundaries of gender and disguise depicted by the relationships featured in the play. Shakespeare’s work is profound, since the play acknowledges homosexual love without punishment, and challenges if love is truly determined by gender, while also upholding

Different types of love and marriage play a significant role in Shakespeare’s twelfth night, whether unrequited like with Antonio and Malvolio; or something seemingly unattainable like with Duke Orsino. Love is prevalent as one of Shakespeare's central theme emphasized in the Twelfth Night. With that, we see Shakespeare communicate different interpretations and feelings regarding the subject. He does this with the medium of melodramatic characters. However, this essay will solely elaborate on the character Duke Orsino and his exploration of love. Through Orsino’s actions, Shakespeare conveys several messages still applicable today, some of which are about the fine line between superficial love and genuine love, love's incoherency, and love's

However, his statement “Thou say thou art a man.” (Act I, Scene V, line 30) Is short, blunt and definite, proving that he is in fact oblivious to her deception. This is yet another example of dramatic irony, as only the audience and Viola are aware of her true identity. This irony shows us that Orsino has been outsmarted by a female, straying from the traditional patriarchal views of women and consequentially reinforcing Dusinberre’s critique of the text. In our modern society, with this current new wave of feminism, this message is particularly relevant, and so would arguably have a greater impact on an audience than the shame felt from Twelfth Night would. If it is to have a greater effect, then it is superior to Shakespeare’s evocation of shame, and thus feeling ashamed cannot be the ultimate effect of Shakespeare’s Twelfth

In many of the plays by William Shakespeare, the central character goes through internal and external changes that ultimately shake their foundations to the core. Numerous theories have been put forth to explain the sequence of tragedies Shakespeare wrote during this period by linking it to some experience of melancholy, anger, despair, and the antagonist 's ultimate fall from grace in their lust for power. But such theories overlook the fact that it is in this very same period and in the same tragic works that portray the heights to which human nature can rise and fall in its purest and noblest, if not happiest terms. Surely the creation of so much light alongside the darkness and the perfection of the artistic medium through which

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

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.

It is easily argued that Shakespeare’s comedic plays have a similar, formulaic, structure. Dr Schwartz from the California Polytechnic State University argues that the ‘action of a comedy traces a movement from conflict to the resolution of conflict’. There are many disorders and complications in each plot, which by the end of the play must be resolved for the satisfaction of the Elizabethan audience, and in some perspectives, this applies to the modern day audience as well. Twelfth Night poses many different arguments as to

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.

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.

At least six or seven years pass after the writing of Midsummer Night’s Dream before we find Shakespeare engaged on Hamlet, the second of the great plays with an important Supernatural element, and, in the opinion of many, the greatest tragedy ever penned. What a profound change has come over his attitude towards the Unseen! No longer does he handle it in . . . [a] cheerful,

Postmodern performance of Shakespeare, particularity in film, is characterized by a subjective experience within the play not an objective experience from the play. Under postmodernism, Shakespeare undergoes theorizing, deconstruction, displacement or death of the author, textual criticism, and cultural and political relativism but fails to produce solid answers. Postmodern Shakepseare does not offer new meanings but new and more possibilities for contemplating meaning. This fails both the traditionalist who relishes in reviving universal meaning, and the progressive who relishes propagating their political diatribe. Traditionalists can give a sigh of relief that Shakespeare thrives in the postmodern age by way of a growing

According to Chris, Shakespeare’s play ‘Twelfth Night’ touches on sensitive concepts within the society (1). Similar to the majority of his literary works, Twelfth Night captures the concept of love and how individuals use love through marriage to achieve power or a higher social status. Throughout the play, there is an apparent struggle for social status by the key characters. Lindheim asserts that there are some characters in the play, such as Antonio who would do everything within their means in order to achieve their sexual desires (2). For example, in a more traditional society or contemporary setting, Antonio could never hope of