Crazy For Love

“Crazy for Love”

William Shakespeare is one of the most widely read and influential authors and has written thirty-eight plays. A recurring theme seen throughout most of his works are about love. Love is when you have a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person. To possess these feelings for another person is easy, keeping them by your side is the hard part, especially with obstacles in your way. William Shakespeare’s infamous, Romeo and Juliet is the epitome of a tragic love story, their passion drove them to their fatal endings. By their actions, the reader can perceive they were madly in love with each other and would do anything in their power for the other. These types of actions can also be recognized in Twelfth Night.

The various love triangles between the characters add to the wit and twists throughout the literature. Hidden meanings through objects display peoples’ true feelings for each other through settle hints. Shakespeare’s writing style enables the reader to fully comprehend how madly in love the characters are with each other. William Shakespeare establishes that the sense of affection compels people to act in a deranged manner through ironic humor, latent symbols, and his style of phrasing in his play Twelfth Night.

The consistent ironic humor in the play creates bewilderment and comedy. Olivia and Viola have a very complicated relationship due to Viola’s disguised gender. When she first meets Olivia, “Viola’s successful wooing of Olivia in this scene allows us a glimpse of tentative “lesbian” poetics as one female character imagines and articulates the words that will seduce another and inspire her to erotic action” (Ake). Viola doesn’t mean for Olivia to start falling for her, but Olivia likes...

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...ealed and revealed in a great artist’s work” (Brandes 1). His writing helps seek out the true emotions of the character and this causes the reader to sympathize with the characters more, especially when they’re stuck in these love triangles. Duke Orsino describes Viola’s lips, “That say thou art a man: Diana's lip Is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe Is as the maiden's organ, shrill and sound, And all is semblative a woman's part” (1.4.32-35). From Orsino complimenting Viola this shows that Orsino does have some feelings for her, but are still unsure of them because he thinks she’s a man. When he says this to Viola her heart melts and she starts falling in love with Duke Orsino even more, which will cause her to do anything to get him to love her back.

Twelfth Night explores the idea that love can expose intense emotions that cause people to act immoral.