Jul 23, 2008

Twelfth Night | Worm i'the bud: The Games of Love in Twelfth Night

An examination of the characters of Duke Orsino, Olivia, and Sebastian in the context of the love games in Twelfth Night.

According to Patrick Swinden in his book, An Introduction to Shakespeare's Comedies, a comedy does not demand "the degree of concentration and belief" required by tragedy. As a result, an audience of a play "is amusedly aware that it's all a play, a game that they are sharing with the actors". ¹ In Twelfth Night, it is the characters, almost without exception, who, in varying degrees, are involved in deception. Swinden says, "Whether we look in the plot that Shakespeare took (indirectly) from the Italian, or the plot he made up to put beside it, we shall discover...