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 deceivable love.
An instance where real love occurs is between Orsino and Viola. Viola and Orsino feel very strongly towards each other. Viola unlike Orsino and Olivia is full of love for the right reasons. She doesn't look for the problems in people and is not attracted to Orsino for his status or money. She is attracted to him for the person he is and the character he has. "yet a barful strife! Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife”. This quote is showing her love her Orsino. Viola is a very sincere character when it comes to her love and she is not afraid to speak her true mind about it. However Viola is disguised as a man and so she cannot show her love for Orsino just yet. She must wait for truth and order to arrive. Which ends up being her twin brother, Sebastian. This leads to the other instance of true love. The family love between Viola and her brother Sebastian.
Through tough times of mourning they still love and care about each other.
The other type of love is self-love. When by definition, the degree to how much you love yourself. It is a rather selfish and cocky quality. And Malvolio is the easiest to associate with self love. He sees himself as a handsome and noble man. He believes many women would love to be with him. After he receives the false letter from Olivia he becomes a different man. He is not scared of opening up to his feelings, while everyone thinks he has gone mad. Sir Toby is also quite a self-lover. Sir Toby is a very selfish character, whom doesn’t even care about his friends. Olivia as well. She cares about the people around her, but she believes that no man is good enough to have her. She is up herself and thinks no man can match her.
Homoerotic love is also an issue in Twelfth Night. If you haven’t noticed yet, well the man that Sebastian is first seen with, is Antonio. Antonio is different from the other characters in that, his type of love is homoerotic love. Antonio has man to man feelings for Sebastian. Now Shakespeare must have included this type of love for a reason. He may have wanted to show that there is really man to man relationships out there. And although it wasn’t very popular at the time, homoerotic relationships did exist. I’m not totally sure why he did what he did for this type of love?
Friendship is the third type of love expressed in "Twelfth Night." The biggest and closest friendship would have to be between Orsino and Cesario. They barely knew each other at first, and before long Orsino was telling Cesario his inner love for Olivia. He even had Cesario running his love messages to Olivia. The second friendship between Viola and the Sea Captain was not mentioned a lot, but they had a strong bond between one another. They survived the shipwreck together and the Sea Captain promised to keep Viola's idea about pretending to be a man a secret. If he had opened his mouth the entire play would have changed. The third friendship, and definitely the strangest, is between Sir Toby and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. They are close friends but sometimes Sir Toby doesn't show it. He sets Sir Andrew up, and likes to get him into trouble. An example is persuading Sir Andrew to challenge Cesario to a dual, even though he is not a great swordsman and is unaware of Cesario's ability. On the other hand, Sir Andrew appreciates Sir Toby's company because he always lifts his spirits and makes him feel like a true knight.
By the end of the play, love is given. Except for the odd few, who love someone that doesn’t love them back. This being Malvolio and Antonio.
Love plays a major role in "Twelfth Night," and Shakespeare addresses true love, self love and friendship in a very compelling and interesting way. Love is great to read about because everyone deserves a little love. "Twelfth Night" is the true definition of love, and Shakespeare does a great job of explaining a somewhat difficult topic.