Far and away, Twelfth Night is my favorite Shakespeare play. I love the love triangle and the passion that the characters feel. It's almost too good for a play. The words that they speak are words that I wish I could hear. Some of the sexual tension between the characters is so thick, you could cut it with a knife. I think that the reason I enjoy this play so much is because of Viola. She pretends to be everything she is not, while she is continually forced to hide her true feelings. Many people of any age can relate to the idea of being in situations that hurt them or make them feel as though they are never truly themselves. Viola is one of the most interesting characters of literature because she bends so many rules and conventions that were popular at the time. I love this play for many reasons, but the primary one is the constant feeling of longing that pervades everything that all of the characters do: from Orsino's longing for Olivia, to Olivia's for Cesario, to Cesario's for Orsino, and even Antonio's for Sebastian.
It makes me feel as though my own longing is not fruitless of hopeless. I think it makes everyone feel as though they are not alone in this world that seems so huge. We are all connected by our essential humanness. I think that on some level all of these passages give us certain feelings that we are often not adequately prepared to deal with. Emotions that we are not always ready to handle. By reading any of these passages, we can see our link with humanity and sometimes the futility of love.
Act I.v.269-277
Viola:
Make me a willow cabin at your gate
And call upon my soul within the house;
Write loyal cantons of contemned love
And sing them loud even in the dead of night;
Hallo your name to the reverberate hills
And make the babbling gossip of the air
Cry out "Olivia!" O, you should not rest
Between the elements of air and earth
But you should pity me.
Act II.ii.17-41
Viola:
I left no ring with her. What means this lady?
Fortune forbid my outside have not charmed her.
She made good view of me; indeed, so much
That sure methought her eyes had lost her tongue,
For she did speak in starts distractedly.
She loves me sure; the cunning of her passion
Invites me in this churlish messenger.
None of my lord's ring? Why, he sent her none.
I am the man. If it be so, as 'tis,
Poor lady, she were better love a dream.
Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness
Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.
How easy is it for the proper false
In women's waxen hearts to set their forms!
Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we,
For such we are made of, such we be.
How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly;
And I (poor monster) fond as much on him;
And she (mistaken) seems to dote on me.
What will become of this? As I am a man,
My state is desperate for my master's love.
As I am a woman (now alas the day!),
What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe?
O Time, thou must untangle this, not I;
It is too hard a knot for me t' untie.
Act II.v.106-122
Viola:
Too well what love women to men may owe.
In faith, they are as true of heart as we.
My father had a daughter loved a man
As it might be perhaps, were I a woman,
I should your lordship.
Duke:
And what's her history?
Viola:
A blank, my lord. She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i' th' bud,
Feed on her damask cheek. She pined in thought;
And, with a green and yellow melancholy,
She sat like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?
We men may say more, swear more; but indeed
Our shows are more than will, for still we prove
Much in our vows but little in our love.
Duke:
But died thy sister of her love, my boy?
Viola:
I am all the daughters of my father's house,
And all the brothers too, and yet I know not.
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