Love in 'Twelfth Night'.

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Shakespeare has presented love in Twelfth Nigh along with his other plays. Love is a major theme in the play, and the plot is based on love. Throughout the course of the novel Shakespeare explores the different types of love. Sure, there is self-love, true love, fake love, unrequited love and many more. 

There are many love triangles in the play. The main triangle being between Orsino, Olivia and Viola. It goes as such: Orsino loves Olivia, Olivia loves Viola and Viola loves Orsino.  SO it goes in a circle with one loving another. However can the love between Orsino and Olivia be true love? Does Orsino really love Olivia for who she is? Many of the characters become involved with love for all the wrong reasons. In the beginning of the play we see Orsino and his desire for love and Olivia.

“If music be the food of love, play on; give me excess of it, that suffeiting,
The appetite may sicken and so die. That strain again, it had a dying fall;         
O it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound that breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour” – 1.i.ln 1

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This being the first words of the play by Orsino. From this we see that he is lovesick and very much in love. We can see that he is in love with the ‘idea’ of love, rather than love itself. He sees love as this perfect and beautiful thing, but talk is all that he does. He just goes on about the idea and doesn’t take the time to actually love Olivia. So this feeling and emotion, which Orsino thinks he has for Olivia, isn’t very real at all. So it could be said that this type of love is ...

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