It would be hard to miss it. In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night the way love is described by the main characters is as if it is something undesirable like a disease or something along those lines. Orsino, the emo lead opens the play by whining about how much he loves Olivia. That his love for her "like fell and cruel hounds, E'er since pursue me" (l 22-23). Viola also sees love as a burden. However, it is even more complicated when she is dressed up as a boy. She feels terrible to love Orsino while dressed up as a boy. "And I, poor monster, fond as on him." First of all she calls herself poor for loving Orsino. This is significant because it is bringing back the idea of love as a burden. Viola takes it farther though by calling herself a monster. This reveals that dressing as a boy has taken its toll on her identity. Love in this play is no easy task and is more confused when genders are switched.
In sonnet 147 Shakespeare writes about the burdensome sickness of love. He compares his love to a fever or sickly appetite. I think it is fascinating that the idea of love in Twelfth Night is found in his sonnets as well. Like we discussed in class, Shakespeare never intended the sonnets to be read. That they still deal with love in the same way as the play is interesting to me. Shakespeare really must have had some painful experiences with love to have talked about it in such a manner in several of his works. Even the works that reveal his thoughts that weren't meant for an audience.
-Molly Hakso
Molly,
ReplyDeleteI didn't say that the sonnets weren't meant to be read: I said that they weren't meant to be published in his lifetime, just as the plays weren't meant to be published.