After reading both Sonnet 130 and Twelfth Night I get the distinct feeling that they were supposed to be read together. In Sonnet 130 Shakespeare’s is making fun of overly romantic poetry. When you look at Twelfth Night Shakespeare is also making fun of overly romantic people, as well as poetry. By looking at these two pieces we can see that Shakespeare is trying to convey something to his audience: pledging undying love is foolish. Just like the other poets of the time set up idealistic expectations of the beauty of woman. Shakespeare is trying to show in Twelfth Night how these impractical expectations of romance can make you a fool.
This folly of love is shown in the scene with Malvolio. After reading what he thought was a love poem from Olivia. Again Shakespeare is referring to the folly of the love poems written by others during his time. We see in Malvolio’s actions that Shakespeare is also making fun of how people act after reading these poems: “this does make some obstruction in the blood, this cross-gartering; but what of that? if it please the eye of one,” (1566-1568). Here Malvolio is referring to the fact that he is wearing crossed garters to please the eye of Olivia who he thinks loves him. Shakespeare is trying to make a joke about the lengths people will go because of the romantic poetry they read. Do you agree with this assertion? Do you think it is the poetry Shakespeare is making fun of or the people?
Kindle,
ReplyDeleteI think he's making fun of both poetry and the people who write it and anyone who falls in love. Wow. That's a lot of people.