"The comedies of William Shakespeare are frivolous and have little literary value." Do you agree? Refer to "Twelfth Night" and one other Shakespearean comedy to support your stand.
The comedies of William Shakespeare, although written centuries ago, are not at all frivolous and have great literary value as they serve not as not only effective but also realistic straightforward portrayals of the universals themes of romantic love and lust, as seen in the realistic comedy "The Taming of the Shrew" and the romantic comedy "Twelfth Night", which still apply in today's society. "Frivolous" is defined as "Of little value, trivial", "comedy" as "The genre of dramatic literature dealing with the comic or with the serious light or satirical manner" and "Literary Value" as "The relative worth or importance for (a piece of) Literature." (Agnes, 373)
This is proven in the "Taming of the Shrew", in an approach to get Shakespeare's message across that how true love, "the deep, tender, unchanging feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person" (Lothian, 130) is often misunderstood when compared to courtly love, "an idealised and often illicit form of love", which is often mistaken for the former. He achieves this by comparing it with how true love grows through understanding between two people and how people change once the "courting" is over. Shakespeare uses the examples of how Katherina and Petruchio seem more likely to enjoy a happy marriage, as the love between them is true, as compared to courtly love, akin to how Luciento won the love of Bianca through deceit, and masking his real personality, resulting in Bianca not being as happy as Katherina after marriage. This is shown through Bianca's refusal to come when called in the last act, when Shakespeare suggests that this marriage will be hard on Lucentio. Bianca might turn out to be as stubborn in her role as a wife as she was mild in her role as a maid. Thus, in his last few lines, Petruccio observes, "We three are married, but you two are sped" (V.ii.189), implying that Lucentio seem destined for unhappiness in marriage given the disobedient natures of Bianca. Petruccio fought tooth and nail to finally win Kate, but he worked hard only because he wanted her to truly allow herself to accept, or choose, obedience in married life. Lucentio, deceived by Bianca's meekness and flirtatious behavior when they were single, now finds that it is "a harsh hearing when women are froward" (V.ii.187). This can be linked to the fact that true love is often confused with courtly love even to date, as shown by how people cannot get along well with each other after marriage because they befuddled true love with romantic love, even ending up in divorces as a result, hence showing that the comedies of Shakespeare are not frivolous.
