Twelfth Night Essay

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Twelfth Night Essay

Twelfth night is a comedy play written by William Shakespeare. The entire play revolves around love and ideas of love. The very first line of the play tells us that love will be the main feature: 'If music be the food of love, play on'. Shakespeare delves deeply into the different facets of love, and explores how each facet is totally different from each other although they all revolve around the same thing: Love. Many facets of love are explored through respective characters in the play, which combine feelings and emotion to bring the idea of love to life.

Shakespeare, a contemporary of Elizabeth I, draws profoundly upon the Elizabethan conventions of love. His genius lay in being able to mock the conventions and to suggest that love could be a partnership of equals. Love was idealised to be the greatest thing on earth in the 16th Century. In this period, rich and powerful families only married into other wealthy and influential families. They cared not for their child's happiness, only that of their own security in social position. Marriages were arranged by the parents for the children, and did nothing for the