Preview

Twelfth Knight Orsino Essay

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
868 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Twelfth Knight Orsino Essay
Characteristics of Orsino in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Knight

Love is desirable, everyone is in search of it, but some take it too far. Some let it control you, and reveal characteristics that ought not to be revealed. Orsino, in the twelfth knight for example let’s love control him revealing aspects of his personality that reveal is obsession with love. Some Notable Characteristics of the Duke of Illyria are his moodiness, selfishness and how he is a fool for love. Orsino is a gentleman who is in search of love, and while eagerly searching; his moodiness and foolishness is revealed. Struggling to find love, Orsino’s temperamental moodiness is revealed. His moodiness is revealed early in the play when Orsino interrupts his own musicians while they are playing to satisfy his needs. Orsino has musicians playing around him in hopes that it will distract his thoughts from how bad he wants to find love. Orsino says, “Enough; no more: ‘Tis not so sweet now as it was
…show more content…
Orsino seems to be a man who is in love with the idea of being in love. The play begins with Orsino saying, “If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again! it had a dying fall: O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound, That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour!” (Act I, Scene I) Orsino is very fixated with love, willing to do whatever it takes to satisfy his own needs. He is so willing he even attempts to find love in a woman in which he knows doesn’t feel the same about him. Orsino fights to have Olivia love him back, in fact the more Olivia rejects him the more it seems Orsino tries t pursue her. Orsino doesn’t care that she has no love for him back, he just wants to find love, and that’s the selfishness within

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    This essay talks about the role of love as it used in Shakespeare’s comedies. It directly talks about “Much Ado about Nothing” and “Twelfth Night”, and how they use love in their stories. “Shakespeare expects us to accept wonder as having some kind of value in itself and in its relations to the action that has gone before. We are presented with the wonderful as an incitement to knowledge and to pleasure; and we are asked also to consider the dramatic fact that those who participate in the happy ending must be ready to set aside their human confinement to the probable and accept an intrusion of the improbable into their lives.” (262-263) Wonder and love are on equal footing in Shakespeare. He expects us to accept that the characters fall in love with each other as well. Love is a vital part of every romantic comedy whether it’s a play written by Shakespeare or a movie like “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days”. The essay also makes a note of how the characters change through the plays and compares how it works in both stories. The author of the essay…

    • 301 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The play begins with Orsino displaying his ever changing mind-set which becomes more obvious and frequent throughout the play. Orsino’s first line is “if music be the food of love, play on;” this being where Orsino manifests to the audience the view that music is feeding his desires although he never allows the musicians to finish as he suddenly changes his mind and interrupts with “Enough; no more.” In addition to this the other characters within the play also realise Orsino has an inconsistent mind set. Within Act 2 Scene 4 Feste states “thy mind is very opal” towards the Duke, implying that he is highly temperamental with his moods by comparing him to an opal gemstone, which shift colours. This is also reinforced at the end of Twelfth Night when Viola admits she is a woman; Orsino drops his affections for Olivia and proclaims his love for Viola instead. By the end of Scene 1 the audience realise that Orsino is not truly in love with Olivia he is in fact in love with the idea of love, perhaps Shakespeare has constructed this character to satirise the view of the melancholy lover. Orsino in act 2 scene 4 states “now good Cesario, but that piece of song, that old and antique song we heard last night” which is where he is asking for a melancholy love song, being another example of him being a melancholy lover. Orsino has been exposed as a being a comic…

    • 1244 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    This causes confusions and problems for himself and the countess Olivia. Orsino thinks he is genuinely in love with Olivia, and worships her, even though he has never had an actual conversation with her. He sees her from far and announces 'the noblest that I have. O, mine eyes did see Olivia first, Methought she purged the air of pestilence. That instant was I turned into a hart '’. . In this line, which happens in the first act shows us how Orsino is a passionate for love but he does not…

    • 1342 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Orsino can be seen at the beginning of the play pining in a melancholic mood for his inamorata, the gorgeous and virtuous Countess Olivia. She spurned every single one of his advances without much thought or hesitation, and it is these rejections that lead Orsino to lament the fact that "there is no woman's sides can bide the beating of so strong a passion, and no woman's heart so big to hold so much as they lack retention". His grumpiness does not stop there as he continued to wax lyrical over the differing perceptions both genders have of love. He egoistically declared, "Make no compare between that love a woman can bear me, and that I owe Olivia". As was the case in the opening scene, Orsino's metaphorical relation of love to food is noteworthy. He deems his love as an appetite; he is "as hungry as the sea and can digest as much". Paradoxically, he had espoused the exact opposite view earlier in the play, stating that men…

    • 949 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Many characters in Shakespeare’s Othello become obsessed with the current state of a relationship. These obsessions then eventually lead the characters to failure when the obsessions become a goal, instead of something that occupies their mind. The transitions from an obsession to a goal can be seen through the actions of Othello, Iago, and Desdemona.…

    • 995 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Orsino On Love

    • 691 Words
    • 3 Pages

    First Orsino compares music to love very melodramatically when he says “If music be the food of love, play on; give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken, and so die” (1.1.1-3). He is saying music is like love because we overindulge on it in the moment until it sickens us and we don’t want to hear it anymore. He’s saying that if it is true that love is like this then bring it on. He’s saying that even though love is sickening he explain why he wishes that it continued cultivating when he says “That strain again! it had a dying fall: O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound” meaning that he is willing to endure the bitterness of one sided love because it is came to him so sweetly in the beginning and he wishes to hear it like that again just as you wish you could hear an overplayed song and have as much joy as you did the first times you listened to it. We also see how fickle he is when he retracts his statement about his love toward Olivia when he says “Enough; no more: Tis not so sweet now as it was before” (1.1,7-8) meaning that he is imagining the fullness of the sickening…

    • 691 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The First Knight Essay

    • 359 Words
    • 2 Pages

    A. Introduction: Write an introduction that introduces the themes of courtly love and chivalry; also,…

    • 359 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Viola's Unselfish Love

    • 974 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Some people will do anything for love. They will cheat, steal, lie, and even give up their life. In some cases they will sacrifice their dreams just to make them happy. This is what real, pure, unselfish love is. In "Twelfth Night" by Shakespeare, Viola, disguised as a man, has found herself in love with her master. Her love for the Duke Orsino is so great that she sacrifices her chances to be with him just so she can make him happy. This story of love shows through Viola's character that love is not just an attraction to another person, it is a undying passion and loyalty to make the other person happy.…

    • 974 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    So that he will have an overdose of it, and will cease to desire for love anymore. In this quote, Shakespear portrays Orsino as a self-indulgent indiviual, because when you lack love you had two options- starving yourself from it, or to stuff yourself with it. With this logic in mind, Orsino decided to stuff himself with it, which shows his self-indulgence, because he'd rather stuff and lament after that he has no more love, than to starve and lament that he is hungry for love. Because of his upbringing as a noble, he does not face hardships and therefore contributes to such a hedonistic…

    • 914 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Othello Essay

    • 746 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, I've come here today to present you with a man who wants to justify the murder of his wife. I will show you how unjustified his act and his thoughts were in this not so spontaneous crime. Othello is on trial for murder and I would like to remind you that he has admitted full and absolute blame for this and you should not heed that lightly. Under the circumstances his mental state will come into account, but do not be bewildered by his claims of psychosis as any man could have had these thoughts befallen upon him and not taken action.…

    • 746 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Othello Essay

    • 723 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Emilia and Desdemona are both confined within a patriarchal power structure, and although their responses to this dynamic are different, they both ultimately die because of it. Emilia and Desdemona reside within a patriarchal society. Emilia and Desdemona both react differently toward their husbands’ actions. Both Desdemona and Emilia die as a direct result of their husbands’ authority over them.…

    • 723 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Twelfth Night

    • 846 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The main focus of the element of satire is the character ‘Orsino’. The play opens with ‘Orsino’ giving a dramatic love speech, other then the speech being very melodramatic and sensitive it isn’t very comic to modern audiences. However ‘Orsino’ was the name of the Spanish Ambassador at that particular time that the play was written, and then adding on the melodramatic love speech creates a huge comic effect on the audience at that time. This continues throughout the whole play and has constant comic effect. This creates a comic effect as soon as the play has started and gets the audience laughing right from the beginning. The audience feels superior to ‘Orsino’ as he is presenting his love for someone who doesn’t even love him back, whilst they’re making their judgment on him for being so foolish. This links in within the superiority theory, which is based around the style of teasing and that there will always be someone who is the subject of everyone else’s…

    • 846 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Love in Twelfth Night

    • 727 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Lust, which is probably one of the most confusing types of love was an apparent subject in twelfth night.There are many reasons why one would lust, one could be because you are attracted to a specific quality of a person or could maybe only like there looks or even just thing like there charisma. Shakespeare showed lust between Orsino and Olivia. Even though Orsino had not met or even seen Olivia, he was still madly in love with her. Lust is defined as an intense but temporary wanting of a persons attention or love. Orsino tried to capture the heart of Olivia through out the play, and lusted for her because he was attracted by her grieving for her family. It was thought by Orsino that She would have an intense love for him if she loved her family so much. As the play moves forward, Orsino actually meets Olivia but he loses his lust for her, and instead loves Viola ( formerly Cesario). Shakespeare also used lust between Malvolio and Olivia. Malvolio thought that Olivia had fallen in love with him (as the reader knows this was a joke being played on Malvolio). This grew a larger ego bubble on Malvolio. He thought that she truly wanted his love, and thusly his ego led him to believe that he truly did love her due to the fact that he was so full of himself. Once again Malvolio finds out in the end that it was a joke. Malvolio?s conceitedness was broken and then he sees that he did not truly love Olivia, but was only flattered that he had been loved by someone so beautiful and young.…

    • 727 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Twelfth Night Essay How would it feel to be in the center of a four-person love triangle? That is how Olivia, a character in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night felt. In Twelfth Night four men have fallen in love with Olivia, a wealthy, beautiful, countess in Illyria. Malvolio, Olivia's steward, Sir Andrew, a friend of Olivia's uncle, Orsino, the Duke of Illyria, and Sebastian, brother to a character named Viola, are all competing for Olivia's love throughout the play.…

    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Orsino is perceived as generous and tolerant as he gives Feste lots of money for some meek entertaining and isn’t irritated by his cheekiness. We see this when he talks to Feste in Act 5: “Thou…

    • 814 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics