How is love presented in Twelfth Night?
Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is in essence a romantic comedy. The theme of love is implemented into both the main and sub plots throughout the endurance of the play; doing so from different perspectives and an array of forms. The other themes in Shakespeare's play, such as madness and humour, all coincidentally have an inextricable link with one another. The emphasis of love in Shakespeare's plots have been built upon the foundations of disguise and deceit; and as a result, enhances the humour and entertainment of the overall play. Shakespeare typically ends Twelfth Night like all his other romantic comedies, with love prevailing in the end with a marriage; or in this case, a series of marriages.
The most glaringly obviously form of love in the play is romantic love, which interestingly enough is never taken from a realistic perspective from any of the leading characters contributing to the theme. For example, the play opens with a speech by the most powerful man in the play, Duke Orsino, who starts by saying "If music be the food of love, play on". This basically establishes right from the opening of the play that Twelfth Night is based on love. Orsino's opening line is promptly contradicted in line 7 when he says "Enough, no more; - 'Tis not so sweet as it was before". This opening segment basically explains to the audience that they should not be surprised if a character's perspective of love is seen as fantasy like and differs from their own perspective. Orsino's character is the first to be exposed in the play, which Shakespeare has used to create an immediate impact on the audience. Orsino is obviously new to the emotion of love and his contradiction in speech supports this. He is ignorant to the feeling and therefore does not posses any knowledge of the significance of love as witnessed through his later actions. Although Orsino can be seen to be naive of what love entails, his character begins the line of a host of others who are similarly as ignorant and unaware as himself, but takes the aspect of love from a different perspective. Orsino defines love through a series of metaphors as opposed to a literal, face value narrative. For example, he personifies love as a predator "like fell and cruel hounds, E'er since pursue me", and as a disease "Methought she purg'd the air of pestilence". The combination of these metaphors with his poetic form (whilst most of the other characters speak in prose), aid Orsino in disguising his ignorance of love to both the audience and the other characters of the play. The personification of love is used on various occasions in Twelfth Night, as well as a predator and a disease, love is personified as madness "midsummer madness" and the sea "Recieveth as the sea".
Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is in essence a romantic comedy. The theme of love is implemented into both the main and sub plots throughout the endurance of the play; doing so from different perspectives and an array of forms. The other themes in Shakespeare's play, such as madness and humour, all coincidentally have an inextricable link with one another. The emphasis of love in Shakespeare's plots have been built upon the foundations of disguise and deceit; and as a result, enhances the humour and entertainment of the overall play. Shakespeare typically ends Twelfth Night like all his other romantic comedies, with love prevailing in the end with a marriage; or in this case, a series of marriages.
The most glaringly obviously form of love in the play is romantic love, which interestingly enough is never taken from a realistic perspective from any of the leading characters contributing to the theme. For example, the play opens with a speech by the most powerful man in the play, Duke Orsino, who starts by saying "If music be the food of love, play on". This basically establishes right from the opening of the play that Twelfth Night is based on love. Orsino's opening line is promptly contradicted in line 7 when he says "Enough, no more; - 'Tis not so sweet as it was before". This opening segment basically explains to the audience that they should not be surprised if a character's perspective of love is seen as fantasy like and differs from their own perspective. Orsino's character is the first to be exposed in the play, which Shakespeare has used to create an immediate impact on the audience. Orsino is obviously new to the emotion of love and his contradiction in speech supports this. He is ignorant to the feeling and therefore does not posses any knowledge of the significance of love as witnessed through his later actions. Although Orsino can be seen to be naive of what love entails, his character begins the line of a host of others who are similarly as ignorant and unaware as himself, but takes the aspect of love from a different perspective. Orsino defines love through a series of metaphors as opposed to a literal, face value narrative. For example, he personifies love as a predator "like fell and cruel hounds, E'er since pursue me", and as a disease "Methought she purg'd the air of pestilence". The combination of these metaphors with his poetic form (whilst most of the other characters speak in prose), aid Orsino in disguising his ignorance of love to both the audience and the other characters of the play. The personification of love is used on various occasions in Twelfth Night, as well as a predator and a disease, love is personified as madness "midsummer madness" and the sea "Recieveth as the sea".
