Sonnet Xx And Twelfth Night

“The course of true love never did run smooth,” comments Lysander of love’s complications in an exchange with Hermia (Shakespeare I.i.136). Although the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream certainly deals with the difficulty of romance, it is not considered a true love story like Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare, as he unfolds the story, intentionally distances the audience from the emotions of the characters so he can caricature the anguish and burdens endured by the lovers. Through his masterful use of figurative language, Shakespeare examines the theme of the capricious and irrational nature of love.

In the play `Romeo and Juliet` the writer William Shakespeare uses the theme of love as a main feature to push the story along. Presented are a plethora of variations of love including family love, true love and courtly love. This essay aims to analyse these three types of love chosen.

     Shakespeare's Twelfth Night examines patterns of love and courtship through a twisting of gender roles. In Act 3, scene 1, Olivia displays the confusion created for both characters and audience as she takes on the traditionally male role of wooer in an attempt to win the disguised Viola, or Cesario. Olivia praises Cesario's beauty and then addresses him with the belief that his "scorn" (3.1.134) only reveals his hidden love. However, Olivia's mistaken interpretation of Cesario's manner is only the surface problem presented by her speech. The reality of Cesario's gender, the active role Olivia takes in pursuing him/her, and the duality of word meanings in this passage threaten to turn the

The last experience of emotional pain is unrequited love. Unrequited love is when a person is desperately in love with someone, but the person they are in love with will never love them back. In other words, to worship with no rewards. This emotional pain flows through three of the characters causing a love triangle, Olivia loves Viola, Viola loves Orsino, and Orsino loves Olivia. All three characters will never get what they want because the feeling is not mutual. Orsino’s love for Olivia is first introduced at the beginning of the play. Orsino first has a long speech about love, which then we realize that he loves the idea of love. But when his friend Curio asks if he is searching for love he replies; “Why, so I do, the noblest that I have. Oh, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,Methought she purged the air of pestilence. That instant was I turned into a hart, And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, E'er since

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.

The fantasy of Olivia he supposedly unconditionally loves is not about Olivia, but all about himself. Not only this, but Orsino is easily convinced to return the deep affection of Viola, possibly because the Duke focuses entirely on his success and desires in love rather than genuine affection. Perhaps, Orsino only developed these feelings for Olivia because he wanted more luxurious things in life. Orsino had great food, servants, and a giant castle. The one thing he lacked in was love. Therefore, the Duke wished to have the most beautiful countess in all of the land: Olivia, to continue owning more and more luxurious things. Through this, Shakespeare conveys that an egotist and wealthy man cannot genuinely love if he does not fixate the gain of love on himself. Not only this, but it also continues the previous message that one might be irrationally obsessed with the idea of love rather than a person due to all of the pleasures there are to

According to The English Review, Duke Orsino has “full of devotion to an ideal of love.” He does not understand that love is not straightforward, and if you love someone, they might not love you back. Orsino loves Olivia, but Olivia loves Cesario who is really Viola. Olivia’s love is complicated. She decides to confess her love to Cesario by saying “Would thou ’dst be ruled by me!” (4.1.68). The confusing part of this encounter is that Olivia really says this to Sebastian, Viola’s twin brother, not Cesario. Olivia’s confusion is most likely not commonly found in the everyday world. However, her complex relationship shows how love is not simple. Olivia thought she loved Cesario/Viola, but in the end, she loved Sebastian. Now, Viola’s character shows the pain and complication of a silenced love. She loved Orsino the whole time she was pretending to be Cesario. She says that she would marry Orsino in the beginning of the play when she says “myself would be his wife” (1.4.46). However, she couldn’t act upon this love until her true identity could be revealed. Sounds very simple and easy does it

The word love can mean many things. Love can be an object, emotion, and a life. However, love could lead to a loss of power, prosperity, and status. In the literary work “Romeo and Juliet” written by William Shakespeare, the readers are introduced to a tragic love story. In this play, readers are also shown the different perspectives of love and the many downfalls it could lead to. The central theme of this work is the recklessness of love. The theme is significant because it is shown throughout the whole story and it’s a strong force that takes place of all the other emotions and values. In this play, Shakespeare uses characters to present different aspects of love. In addition, Nurse, Mercutio, and Romeo completely show what actual love is and what it is like to lose it due to their experiences.

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

The Theme of Love in A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare presents us with multiple types of love by using numerous couples in various different situations. For example: Doting loves, the love induced by Oberon's potion and in some aspects, Lysander and Hermia's love for each other; there are true loves: Oberon and Titania, Lysander and Hermia (for the first half at least, as Lysander's love switches to Helena temporarily) and Theseus and Hippolyta. Also, there is Helena's love for Demetrius, which could be described as a true love, even though at first it is unrequited.

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.

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.

Shakespeare examines love in two different ways in Sonnets 116 and 130. In the first, love is treated in its most ideal form as an uncompromising force (indeed, as the greatest force in the universe); in the latter sonnet, Shakespeare treats love from a more practical aspect: it is viewed simply and realistically without ornament. Yet both sonnets are justifiable in and of themselves, for neither misrepresents love or speaks of it slightingly. Indeed, Shakespeare illustrates two qualities of love in the two sonnets: its potential and its objectivity. This paper will compare and contrast the two sonnets by Shakespeare and show how they represent two different attitudes to love.

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

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