by Nicole Short (Circle 5)
“To the unknown beloved:”
So starts the fake love letter Malvolio finds in Olivia’s garden, planted there by Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, Fabian and Maria. And although Malvolio is fooled by the words in the note he believes was written by Olivia, he’s not the only “unknown beloved” in Twelfth Night. The first two Acts of the play focus on the construction of the “knot,” as Viola calls it, of a love triangle marked by disguise, misinterpretation, and fantasy.
I had some trouble grappling with the concept of love as it played out in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and reading Twelfth Night has further complicated the issue for me. In Midsummer, romantic love is easily mutable, and also somewhat arbitrary. There’s very little difference between Lysander and Demtrius, but Hermia just has to love and marry Lysander. Helena is consistently insulted and put down by Demetrius, but she continues to love him with all of her heart. Love in Shakespeare’s plays chooses its victims mercilessly and seemingly without reason, and those under its spell are hopeless to escape.
All of this made me wonder: why do we love the ones we love? Is it an Elizabeth Barrett Browning “love for love’s sake only” kind of situation, or does compatibility play a role?
In Twelfth Night, the idea of love is complicated by the introduction of disguises: the idea of romantic love as not love for who a person truly is, but rather love for what one imagines a person to be, love as an art not for the heart but for the imagination.
“So full of shapes is fancy,” says the Duke in the opening soliloquy of Twelfth Night, “that it alone is high fantastical” (I.i.14).
Everyone involved in Twelfth Night‘s love triangle is in love with a stranger, in a way. Viola disguises herself as Caesario from the one she loves, the Duke, who loves Olivia. But Olivia doesn’t love the Duke, and is fooled by Viola’s disguise–and so loves Caesario (who’s really Viola). Even Olivia herself is veiled.
This all makes for a funny situation for sure, but Shakespeare also seems to be commenting on the role of appearances and illusion in romantic love. Each of us wears a disguise even in wearing our own faces. The Duke loves Olivia, but has he ever even spoken to her? Olivia loves Caesario, who, apart from his appearance, doesn’t even exist.
Love–at least the love at work in this play, love at first sight–is inherently shallow and inherently illusory. It is love for love’s sake, but it is also a love of the unknown.
You make a good point about the idea of love between strangers in this play. The characters who “fall in love” really do not know each other at all, and that is complicated by their disguises, causing the person chasing the other to really have no idea who that person is truly.
That being said, I think is is common of all of Shakespeare’s plays to depict love as a somewhat rushed affair– I mean really, Romeo and Juliet knew each other for three days– and Twelfth Night is no exception. I’m not so sure about the fact that Shakespeare does this to create the idea that love is illusory, but rather that is is more indicative of love at the time. With the lower amount of compainionate marriages in the social classes Shakespeare writes about, these relationships and their pace could have been the norm. Also, you have to keep in mind that since this is a play, there is a little amount of time to get the message across, and maybe some of the realistic aspects of love are sacrificed in the process, giving way to love between somewhat strangers.
The idea of “love at first sight” is a reoccurring theme of Shakespeare’s. The most intense and well known of Shakespeare’s “love at first sight” model is in Romeo and Juliet. It is incredible to me that a young woman and a young man could see each other, immediately fall in love and then be willing to die in order to not be without the other. Although Twelfth Night, a comedy, does not end in the death of the confused lovers, Shakespeare is commenting on the superficial nature of love. Clearly this model works for Shakespeare though, because we still read, study and put on his plays today.
I agree with the conclusion you arrive at in your post – that many of the characters in this play are in love with a stranger, and I would even extend upon what you have already mentioned. Orsino definitely feels some sort of care and love for the young gentleman Cesario, without understanding fully who Cesario really is. Even when it is revealed that Cesario is really Viola in disguise and Orsino plans on marrying her, does he really know Viola, or is he marrying what he saw in Cesario? It is all kind of confusing. Additionally, I would venture to add Malvolio into the mix, as the woman he falls in love with is not Olivia, but the character Maria creates through her romantic letters in a ploy to make Malvolio out to be a fool. Thus, Malvolio’s woman is a stranger to him and to the audience. Nice job with your post!
I will admit that I didn’t take the time to think of love has an entity that could take control of the characters, especially in regards to Twelfth Night, but now I can see how that is a completely valid point. The actions of the characters are very heavily based on their love for another and then seeing the consequences of those actions. Normally this would give us readers something to sit back and think about (not that it doesn’t here) but there would be much more to think and discuss about if it were between characters that were well known to each other. Not having fallen in love with Disney Time aka three days or less. While I think Antonio ‘s feelings and Orsino’s feelings may be exceptions considering how they’ve known Sebastian and Cesario respectively for three months and this would give them at least some time to develop romantic feelings for each other, the fact that Olivia falls in love with Cesario and then Sebastian only after a few moments is especially ridiculous, which I love how you brought up how it is ironic that Olivia decides to swear off men only for her to fall for a pretty face. As our other classmates above me already mentioned, this along with Romeo and Juliet may be Shakespeare’s attempt to show the model of love at first sight and then leave it up to the reader and the audience to judge the validity of this believe to see if it holds any weight whatsoever, especially when the first sight is deceived by a disguise
Nicole,
The idea of love is always a constant thought in my head when I am reading Shakespeare’s plays. You are right about the love aspect in Twelfth Night being a somewhat shallow love expressed by all the characters involved- except for the exception of Antonio who obviously cares for Sebastian immensely. I love how you explained the theme of love in this play as “seemingly without reason” because I feel the same way. Olivia literally meets Cesario for about ten minutes and she is already head over heels in love with “him.” There is this sense of hopeless love that is portrayed that is very intense and abrupt. What you said about each of the characters wearing a disguise in their own faces was a really good point because it is true that they really do not know one another, maybe they love the “idea” of the person? The Duke loves Olivia (without meeting her) because of her beauty and I believe the idea of just winning her love at this point. Olivia loves Cesario who she believes is the man of her dreams because “he” is young and sensitive and she believes is fate, and Olivia doesn’t even know him because “he” is really a “she.” It’s amazing how love works in our minds and sometimes can blind us. Great blog post!
Nicole,
I think you make an excellent point that has not been brought up before. It is definitely strange how in both the plays we have read thus far that the characters seem to fall in love for the “wrong” reasons. It is never made clear to why Hermia loves Lysander or why all of the love triangles exist in The Twelfth Night. It seems that the characters don’t fall in love based on their affection towards their partners, but for what they are capable of in regards to power and money. Like we talked about in class, the only true love in either play seems to be between Antonio and Sebastian, which is not who we would have thought would be the two to show true compassion toward one another.
I really enjoyed your post and where you went with your ideas.
I, too, would add Malvolio into the list of people that fall in love with a stranger. He essentially falls in love with the words written on paper, with whom he’s certain is Olivia’s handwriting, but nevertheless, it could be anyone. Also (and I might have missed this in reading), I question how long Malvolio has been in service for Olivia and whether or not he has actually gotten to know her as a person, rather than just taking an order here or there or scarcely talking with her.
I feel like a lot of this, especially in Shakespeare’s plays, isn’t a true representation of love, but rather those who fall in love with the idea of being in love, if that makes sense. It seems as though these characters only react in such a way because they’re excited to love and be loved in return (I see this especially with Orsino, as he’s faced rejection countless times from Olivia, so the first chance of love that comes his way he hops onto almost immediately).
I really thought your comment on whether or not we actually love a person or love the idea of a person was extremely thought provoking; in the two plays we have read so far it seems as though the latter is Shakespeare’s answer. The very fact that Olivia marries Sebastian—believing him to be his sister—proves this point completely. If it is not the mental or emotional attraction that led to her love and consequently her “infidelity” of sorts, then it was purely for the physical likeness of the two. She married for the skin, not for the soul—for the idea rather than the reality. Malvolio is in a similar boat; his thirst for greed blinded him to fact. If anyone else found the letter that Maria dropped for him, they would have never come to the conclusion that these vague hints at a person would equal Malvolio, but because his love was a material one from the start, the slightest push in the right direction was all that was needed.
You bring up a really interesting point about tropes of romantic love. Many of Shakespeare’s plays establish who the love relationships are going to be between in the first act, and then spend the rest of the show either figuring out how to make those relationships work, or showing how they’re leading to despair. I feel like once someone gets familiar with Shakespeare’s style and patterns, after the first few scenes, it’s pretty obvious who is going to get together. In Midsummer, Hermia and Lysander are a pair before the events of the play, and since Helena loves Demetrius, it would not be remiss to guess that the two of them will end up together. In Twelfth Night, Viola is our lead, and so her love relationship with Orsino has to occur, otherwise it’s not a proper comedy.
Nicole,
I really like what you said about how disguises Twelfth Night complicate love. Wow, and “love as an art not for the heart but for the imagination”– I think that says a lot about the way we tend to love others. Love can be very deluding, and often we delude ourselves when we think we’re falling in love. I think, in his comedies, Shakespeare tends to make the point that love is not always as beautiful or as perfect as we make it out to be.
Hi Nicole, I really like your blog post. I didn’t think to much about love in this play because I thought it was rather arbitrary and not something we really discussed in class. Your post makes a lot of sense to me, these characters are really loving for love’s sake. May be Viola loves Orsino truly because she has had the time to get to know him but, she also may just love the idea of the forbidden-ness of the whole situation. I’m interested to know the motives behind Viola’s love. I like your idea of masks, that everyone walks around with one, it reminded me of the short story “The ministers black veil.” We all walk around througout out entire lives with masks, and one may only be able to fall in love with a mask and not the real entity.
Nicole,
After reading Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I too am left to wonder what actually constitutes love within a Shakespeare play. At least in A Midsummer Night’s Dream one can speculate that Lysander and Hermia have developed their relationship and “love” before the play, as did Helena develop her love for Demetrius previously. However, what is daunting about the love portrayed in Twelfth Night is that we as the readers/audience are supposed to be watching these characters “fall in love” and in doing this, it becomes very obvious that there is little to no build up. It makes me wonder if Shakespeare truly is trying to present love as a passionate and sudden affair or if he is mocking his characters for claiming their lust as love.