To what extent does Twelfth Night fit the genre of a romantic comedy?

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4/12/02         English Coursework Essay        

To what extent does Twelfth Night fit the genre of a romantic comedy?

The name of this play, Twelfth Night, is a holiday period, just after Christmas in which things are said to be ‘turned upside down.’ Because of the nature of the plot of the play, this title seems fitting.

        Twelfth Night is what we call a ‘romantic comedy,’ a comic play drawing on elements of fable, often concerned with love. It is a story of deceit, deception and disguise and filled with dramatic irony, sexual tension and many different kinds of love, both gay and unrequited. It is also set in this fantasy location called Illyria, where the main character, Viola, is shipwrecked on.

        The main story is of a girl, Viola, who, having been shipwrecked from her presumed dead brother, decides to dress as a boy so she can get a job in a noble household. Already this confusion, trickery and a fantasy type location follow the path of a romantic comedy. This is made even more apparent when Viola, pretending to be the boy Cesario, falls in love with her master, the Duke Orsino. Meanwhile Orsino keeps up his obsessions for Olivia, the countess of a neighbouring court, getting the disguised Viola to deliver her his love messages, unaware of her true identity. The situation gets even more complicated when Olivia falls in love with Viola’s disguise, Cesario. ‘To any other trust but that I am mad, or else the lady’s mad.’

The love triangle is the first, and most important part of the plot. Around this main plot are a series of subplots, including Malvolio and the attack on Puritanism, and the story of Sebastian, Viola’s lost brother, and his return.

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        Not all of these sub plots are comic, or contribute to the genre of a ‘romantic comedy,’ but they all relate to some form of love.

        Throughout the play, different kinds of love are felt and expressed by different characters. These loves vary from the self-obsessive exerted by Malvolio when he considers a union with Olivia, ‘she that would alter services with thee,’ to the secret, insecure love both Orsino and Olivia feel for the disguised Viola.

        

To understand these variations of love we need to know what real love is, or the definition atleast:

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