Sonnet 116 and Twelfth Night

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 has many parallels to Orsino’s theatrical views on love in Twelfth Night. Orsino is caught up in a self-made melodrama of love, yet it is clearly apparent that he is merely infatuated with the idea of being in love, rather than concentrating on love itself. His speeches are riddled with “me” and “my,” scarcely referring to Olivia, whom he supposedly yearns for. Sonnet 116, in contrast, is about love in its purest form: a love that does not weaken or change with the passage of time, a love that survives even death. This pretense of love, contrasted with a real and eternal love, shows the irrationality of Orsino as he proclaims himself to be in love with Olivia. The most relevant line of Sonnet 116 in regards to Twelfth Night reads “Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds.” Olivia could not have ever been Orsino’s true love, for is she was, it would have been “an ever-fixed mark.” Though Orsino pines and mopes despondently for Olivia, his love for her quickly and almost painlessly dissipates, thus showing they are not of “true minds.”