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To What Extent Are the Opening Scenes of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night Typical of Dramatic Comedy? Essay Example

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To What Extent Are the Opening Scenes of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night Typical of Dramatic Comedy? Essay Example
Throughout the beginning scenes of Twelfth Night Shakespeare uses dramatic comedy as a main way to create humour to the audience. The shock factor creates a comical atmosphere to the beginning of the play, and the form in which Shakespeare introduces the character’s expresses effectively each character’s over exaggerated personality creating dramatic comedy. As twelfth night is a comedy but is all about mistaken identity and love Shakespeare had to reveal the comedy in discreet ways to make the humour natural and the only way this could be produced was through dramatic forms creating the comedy through over exaggeration.
Orsino’s introduction throughout Act 1, Scene 1 creates a comical effect at the beginning of the play through the hyperbole of his love for Olivia, his love is exaggerated from the beginning of the play and creates dramatic comedy for the audience as they recognise he is not in love with Olivia but is in fact in love with the feeling of being in love. The false view of love Orsino shows humours the audience as they realise he only cares for himself and not Olivia, throughout the scene he expresses how in love he is however he does not use Olivia’s name until line 20. The audience can see through this false view of love yet the audience can see Orsino does not recognise his false view of love which adds to the drama of the beginning of the play. Shakespeare uses the form of Orsino’s lengthy speech in this act to add a dramatic effect as it enhances the way in which Orsino’s character puts forward his personality and makes everything even more exaggerated. ‘If music be the food of love, play on;’ The play begins with a metaphor comparing music to food this helps to express Orsino’s feelings as when people are in Orsino’s situation they tend to indulge in food similarly to Orsino’s self-indulgent. Orsino’s self-indulgent is the main focus of Act 1, Scene 1 and creates a dramatic effect to the very beginning of the play as the audience are humoured by

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