The Contrasted Attitudes to Love in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night
In the play, Twelfth Night, Shakespeare shows two main attitudes to
love. The courtly, fairy tale love among people of high social class,
for example Duke Orsino's attitude to love, and there is the 'earthy',
realistic and physical love among the middle and lower class, like the
love between Sir Toby and Maria. Shakespeare parallels the idealized
love with earthy love, and between these are expressed the attitudes
to love of Olivia, Viola and Feste.
Duke Orsino's opening speech to the play is all four legs that make
the 'throne' of courtly love. This paragraph explains the whole of
Orsino's personality; very romantic, madly in love, but the ironic
thing is that he does not mention who he loves, not even the sex or
creation of the person he loves. This only proves that Orsino is in
love with love itself.
We can also tell that Orsino's love is unhealthy, but in Orsino's
favour, he is trying to end his love. This is pointed out from the
first line of his speech, 'If music be the food of love, play on' line
1, 1:1.
Actually this line seems very romantic and that he truly loves a
beautiful goddess by describing music as being the 'food' that his
love feeds on but then Orsino crushes this beautiful image with the
next two lines,
('Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.' Lines 2-3, 1:1)
by adding on that he hopes that if he feeds on too much of the music
he will get sick of it and his love will die after 'eating' too much
of the music.
Also from this speech, we can tell the Orsino is of high social class,
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...be Count Malvolio!' as if it
were a dream of his). We then can tell that Malvolio is a pure social
climber and is to me the biggest fool of this play.
In Act 5 scene 1 lines 359-361 we are surprised to hear that Sir Toby
has married Maria as a reward for her help with tricking Malvolio. I
think Sir Toby used that as a cover-up instead of saying that he truly
loved her and that her help just added more fire to his passion for
her. But Maria I think did this to catch Sir Toby's attention to show
that she is clever and mischievous like he is, but I do not think she
did this to socially climb but because she likes Sir Toby and his
personality since his is very similar to hers. I believe her love is
true.
In conclusion, Twelfth Night includes many different attitudes to love
and that it is linked to social climbing.
In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the views of love held by the character Romeo contrast sharply with the views of Mercutio. Romeo's character seems to suffer from a type of manic depression. He is in love with his sadness, quickly enraptured and easily crushed again on a passionate roller coaster of emotion. Mercutio, by contrast is much more practical and level headed. His perceptions are clear and quick, characterized by precise thought and careful evaluation. Romeo, true to his character begins his appearance in the play by wallowing in his depression over Rosaline who does not return his love:
' Here's much to do with hate, but more with love.' Act 1 scene 1.
Love is only as strong as the people who share it. In William Shakespeare’s play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, there are relationships from all different viewpoints of love. Four Athenian lovers are caught in a web of love for the wrong person, according to fellow peevish characters. Along the story line of the play, one will be introduced to additional characters that try to be helpful by committing acts they presume will benefit the young lovers, but these characters actually create plot-twists. Also, there are other characters that have the authority to change whatever they feel is necessary without thinking twice. Furthermore, throughout this humored play, Shakespeare portrays various forms of love through arranged marriages, forbidden love, magically tampered love, and unanticipated romances to show how there’s no right or wrong way to love someone.
Romeo and Juliet is a play that explains the strong love between two teenagers that soon results in their demise. This play is categorized as one of Shakespeare’s tragedy plays. Yet, many people prefer categorize this play as a romance or play about love. What does this really mean you might be asking. I think that a play about love means that this play is attempting to explain what love is and why it makes people do the things they do. I believe this because throughout the first act it discusses Romeo’s past love and how it affected him. It also describes the love that begins to develop between Romeo and Juliet just through a single conversation and a kiss. However, there are many different views on love throughout just the first act.
In the first scene of Act one there is the servants Sampson and Gregory talking about sexual love. As they both talk about taking girls virginity. They both sound arrogant as they talk as if it is through experience. To them the thoughts of taking a girl’s virginity seems a joking matter.
Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is a play with themes that parallel the folly of the festival it is named after. The main storyline of the plot plays on this a lot by mixing up the stereotypes around gender that were very present at the time. However, a sub-plot involving secondary characters defines this theme even more. It takes the idea even further by relating servants’ attempts to blur the lines between social classes. Twelfth Night’s Maria and Malvolio both have great aspirations to rise above their social class. However, Maria succeeds where Malvolio fails because of her capability to make use of the satiric ambiance of her mistress’s household to achieve her goals.
Unlike the other characters in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night", Viola's feelings of love are genuine. She is not mistaken about Orsino's true nature and loves him for who he really is, while the other characters in the play seem to be in love with an illusion. Viola's love for Orsino does not alter during the play, nor is it transferred to another person.
Emotions are among the most potent forces humanity has ever faced, and, as William Shakespeare emphasizes, love is one of the most influential emotions an individual can experience. Throughout Twelfth Night, Shakespeare focuses on one main characteristic about love that helps to solidify the strength of this emotion on the characters. He wants to reader to understand that love is one of the few forces that can instantaneously incapacitate and cripple human beings, yet it simultaneously wields the capacity to bestow the highest level of satisfaction within an individual.
After Olivia has her very first conversation with Cesario (Viola), where he tries to woo her for Duke Orsino, she immediately falls in love with him. After Cesario leaves her palace, Olivia says to herself ‘Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit do give thee fivefold blazon. Not too fast; soft, soft. Unless the master were the man. How now? Even so quickly may one catch the plague?’ Here Olivia states that Cesario’s external features are what attract her to him. Her metaphor contains a s...
In Act 2 scene 5 the mood is very lighthearted and is full of theatrical comedy, we find Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and their friend Fabian hidden away as they await Malvolio to stumble upon the letter supposedly written by Olivia. Even though they are hidden the audience can still see their reactions and hear their comments, which adds to the melodramatic aspect of the scene. The audience is anxious to see what unravels next as they know Maria purposely wrote the letter in order to fool Malvolio.
We know from the very opening scene of Romeo and Juliet, Romeo and Juliet's love will end in
Like most fairy tales that commence with "Once upon a time," William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is a romantic comedy where a basic conflict is eventually resolved so that all the protagonists live "happily ever after." Similar to Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, Twelfth Night not only includes conflict resolution, but also a wedding in the final act meant to signify the good fortune that is bestowed on all the central characters at the conclusion of the play. Ultimately love is supposed to conquer all things. As displayed in fairy tales, love comes complete with chirping birds and a rainbow painted sky. Shakespeare, however, mocks love in its absurdity and accuses it of imperfection because love is a truth that is not perfect and does not always triumph. By examining the characters Olivia and Orsino, a reader will recognize that love is inconsistent and unconventional, and is capable of being genuine at times and egotistical at others; in order for love to be unconditional a level of openness and honesty must first occur. This level of sincerity is evident through the theme of gender bending.
In all of Shakespeare's plays, there is a definitive style present, a style he perfected. From his very first play (The Comedy of Errors) to his very last (The Tempest), he uses unique symbolism and descriptive poetry to express and explain the actions and events he writes about. Twelfth Night, The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream are all tragicomedies that epitomise the best use of the themes and ideology that Shakespeare puts forth.
Orsino says, 'If music be the food of love, play on; give me excess of
Shakespeare’s plays are very drastic with how he ties love into them. Shakespeare always adds comedy or tragedy to any romance that might be taking place. For example in Twelfth Night, As You like It and Romeo and Juliet there is romance but he also puts comedy in there so love is not that easy. In the play Othello he makes it into a tragedy which makes the love even harder to take place. Shakespeare has always found a way to make love as complicated as he can which leads me to believe that he feels that you must work for love and it should not be handed to you. Love is already complicated, but when Shakespeare is involved he makes sure at least two things come around that can make it harder for those who are in love to actually stay in love.