Orsino is the prime example of the melancholy lover, and is Shakespeare’s example of Elizabethan love. He does not know it, but Orsino is in love with the idea of being in love itself, he doesn’t actually love Olivia like he claims to. The love he senses for Olivia is metaphorically referred to as an ‘appetite’ and music as its ‘food’. He feels music stimulates his love for Olivia, and it ‘feeds’ his emotions and satisfies his hunger some lust for love. Orsino’s love is not realistic, and he worships Olivia from a vast distance, as the courtly love he holds shines through. She is merely an object, not real but there to fuel his emotions, and representing the idealised object of his love. The romantic love fuels the courtly love, as flowers and music make it easier for him to just sit down and love her from a distance. Although he claims to love her, he does nothing himself to win her over, and instead dispatches viola (Cesario) to woo Olivia on his behalf. This wooing by proxy enabled Orsino to carry out his courtly love, but attempt romantic love by sending someone on his behalf as a grand passionate gesture. ‘That, notwithstanding thy capacity, receiveth as the sea’. Orsino feels his capacity to love is as big as the sea. Orsino deliberately misinterprets his servant’s request to ‘hunt the hart’, and is likening his love to a deer hunt; no matter what he does, love is chasing him. He does this a lot, changing words and sentences to further coddle in thoughts of Olivia. He desires only ‘love thoughts’ but not love itself. He makes himself ‘canopied with bowers’ so to feel emotional attachment to love and Olivia. He describes his love as ‘cruel hounds’ and makes himself believe that love is dominating him, when it is only his mind that has been addicted to the idea of love.
Olivia sees through Orsino’s fake love for her and ‘brushes him off her shoulder’. She sees his love as a ‘heresy’ as he sends a messenger to court on his behalf, and that it is wrong to do so. She feels he is ‘betraying’ himself, as he has only love for ideas of love, and is tricking himself that he loves her. Although Olivia tries in vain to stop Orsino trying to woo her, Orsino believes she cannot say no to him. He sees himself as love incarnate and repudiates to accept rejection. So instead of moving onto someone else, he persists in still sending messengers and desperately trying to entice her and make her fall for him. This in return makes Olivia put up with him less, and if it weren’t for her fancying Cesario (Orsino’s messenger), she would have dismissed him long ago. Whatever Orsino says or does, it cannot be hidden that he is in fact not in love with Olivia; he’s just in metaphorical love with love itself.
Olivia’s brother recently passed away and as of consequence Olivia has vowed to shut herself away from the world and mourn for seven years for love of her dead brother. Much like Orsino’s love for her, Olivia’s love is false. She stages empty gestures, like her decision to mourn for seven years, to wearing a veil, to sprinkle her chamber with ‘eye-offending brine’, say nothing about her true grief. She is in love with the idea of being in mourning, but the real mourning is false. Whether she has truly already mourned, or cared not to mourn at all for her dead sibling, we shall not know. What we do know, however, is that her mourning for seven years is just a distraction, as the only real purpose it serves is to keep Orsino’s love at a distance. No one dares or can expose this truth to Olivia, as of social position she is very high. Only Feste, the allowed fool, can expose this troubling truth to Olivia and make her put a stop to the madness. He exposes the theatricality of her mourning by bringing common sense to the proceedings: ‘the more fool, Madonna to mourn for your brother’s soul being in heaven’
Olivia’s love, like Orsino’s, is often described as ‘sentimental’; as Olivia thinks highly of her own good looks, ‘Is’t not well done?’, also she is quickly infatuated by Viol’s appearance, ‘not so fast! Soft, soft!’ and as of which she constantly beseeches Viola to visit her. Olivia’s actions could be explained because of how she has been brought up. Her father and brother protected her intensively from the world and this can shape personality. One reason she is rejecting Orsino so vividly is because she suspects that he, like her male relatives, will simply dominate her and overprotect her.
Olivia’s artificial mourning for her brother is further exposed by her abrupt decision to see and welcome-in Cesario. Olivia already made it crystal clear that she has no intention to yield to Orsino’s messages, so why does she wish to listen to Cesario wooing on Orsino’s behalf? Olivia hurriedly dismisses her attendants away after hearing Cesario, even though she has no intention of listening to Orsino’s longing. Olivia then unveils her face, after agreeing to ‘draw the curtain and show’ Cesario ‘the picture’. She has done this to no one since she started the mourning process and it is very odd that she does this to someone she barley knows at all. She welcomes him in and makes herself open to him. As she barley knows him, they have only exchanged a few words; she has fallen in love with him at first site. This, as stated early, is a form of love, and Shakespeare uses this as the personification of Romantic love. Olivia fancies Cesario very much, and falls in love not only with his looks, but also with the words that he is using to woo on Orsino’s behalf. As Cesario is in fact a woman, she knows what words to say to Olivia, this makes Olivia fall in love with her even though Cesario does it unintentionally. Olivia blatantly wishes to see more of Cesario, as she has quickly fallen in deep love with him. ‘Come to me again’, she encourages and urges him to visit her once more.
We understand fully that Olivia has fallen deeply in love with Cesario when she sends a ring after him as he leaves. Rings are usually described as symbols of love, as the roundness represents a love circle and rings symbolize marriage. The ring is sent to entice Cesario back, so she knows he will have to return to give the ring back to her. We then fully realise that she is in love when she states ‘love sought, is good; but given unsought, is better’. We now fully realise that she has just fallen in love when not seeking it. This totally shows the falsity of Olivia’s mourning as she whipped off her veil at the nearest opportunity and is now obsessed with Cesario.
Olivia’s love cannot be returned by Cesario however, as Cesario is in fact Viola. Olivia is unable to satisfy her love because of this, and this makes her love problematic. She is all over Cesario but he keeps pushing her away as he is in fact a woman. We also realise that Olivia’s feelings are not founded on true love, but she is actually transfixed by mere appearances. She is only in romantic love, as she cares not for personality but just love in a sexual nature. This is explained to us, as Olivia doesn’t recognise the difference between Sebastian and Viola, even though they are of different sex! We also are shown that she is only attracted by appearance as her change from Cesario to Sebastian in terms of love at the end of the play makes us realise this.
At the beginning of the play Orsino is presented as a changeable man: ‘Enough; no more’ he tells his musicians, only seconds after he has told them to ‘play on’. This changeable feature of Orsino’s character is shown also when he suddenly realises that he loves Viola and not Olivia all along. The extent and depth of his love is questioned as he can suddenly channel his emotions to someone else so quickly without batting an eyelid. This brings up the question of is Orsino capable of true love? After all he has been a melancholy lover all along and now to just change partners at the end of the play. I doubt he is really capable of true love at all. On the other hand Viola highly represents true love in the play, as she loved Orsino right from the moment she met him right to the end. With both these character traits in mind the coming together of these two characters at the end of the play is not as harmonious as it first appears, as Orsino is likely to stop loving Viola very soon and move onto an infatuation with someone else.
Viola truly believes in true love and is a loving, kind and caring person. She is the most loving person in the play and her feelings are truly genuine. Even though her love for Sebastian (her brother) is true and dear, she does not go through the mourning process like Olivia even though she cared for her sibling more than Olivia did. She realises that she does not have the time or the inclination to spend mourning for any period of time at the moment, as she is lost on a foreign island and wishes to seek her fortune at Orsino’s court disguised as a young man. Although she cares more than Olivia, Viola is much more realistic and determined person, meaning that she does not mourn in the same way as Olivia. One way of looking at Olivia’s mourning is that she is doing it for her own pleasure, as she cared but a little for her brother and she enjoys the mourning process of being shut away for seven years. If this theory is true it shows quite a sick side of Olivia, with her indulging in mourning for her dead brother, however I do not see that side of her, rather that she just loves the idea of being in mourning.
Viola’s true feelings for Orsino have been prevented from being expressed by her act of concealment from her true identity. While she is still Cesario, she cannot confess to her feelings for fear of what Orsino might think. Viola is caught in a tragic love triangle, as she loves Orsino, while Orsino loves Olivia, while Olivia loves Viola. Viola’s true feelings are also reflected heavily in her language. This is another piece that wins Olivia’s heart to her, as her words ‘touch the soul’ and ‘deliver love’s messages’.
Another form of love is misguided love. This love does not play a great part in the play, although it is this love that conjures up one of the main events. Malvolio is in deep love with himself. He is vain and bigheaded. He feels that he should be loved by others, and is tricked into believing that Olivia loves him. He is easily tricked, as he believes that she should love him, for he is both wonderful and easily adored, in his own perspective. He pays the price for this flaw, as he realises that he has been tricked and that he is so vain. This love is called misguided love, as he is literally misguided into believing that she loves him and believing that all should love him.
Another type of love is the love of joy. All the characters in the play love the festivities of the Twelfth Night period, and indulge in fun and humour. All the characters accept one. Malvolio is a killjoy. After the trick has been played on him he storms off and swears for revenge. He does this because he still believes he is so great that people dare not or shouldn’t play jokes on him. He tries to ruin the fun for the other characters and as such he carries the worst kind of love in him.
Throughout the play love is certainly the dominant feature. The entire play revolves around this feature, and all the different types of love are present in it. It makes the play different from the normal love plays as they only usually carry one type of love. This play uses them all to great measure, and makes the play amusing and thoughtful. There are morals in this story as well as humour. Shakespeare draws heavily on the Elizabethan conventions of love and succeeds in bringing them to life and mocking them without harming anyone!
By Tom Spence.
