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Definition of Irony
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how they actually are. If this seems like a loose definition... read full definition
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how they actually are. If this... read full definition
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how... read full definition
Act 1, scene 4
Explanation and Analysis—The Maiden's Organ:
In Act 1, Scene 4, Orsino expresses his belief that Cesario's youth and feminine nature will make him more successful at wooing Olivia:
Orsino: She will attend it better in thy youth
Than in a nuncio’s of more grave aspect.
Viola: I think not so, my lord.
Orsino: Dear lad, believe it;
For they shall yet belie thy happy years
That say thou art a man. Diana’s lip
Is not more smooth and rubious, thy small pipe
Is as the maiden’s organ, shrill and sound,
And all is semblative a woman's part.
I know thy constellation is right apt
For this affair.
This scene is an example of dramatic irony because the audience knows that "Cesario" is actually Viola—he does not merely resemble a woman, he is in fact a woman in disguise. The scene would have been especially funny for an Elizabethan audience, since Viola would have been played by a young male actor, heightening the homoerotic tension between the two characters.
Orsino's confidence in Cesario's ability to woo Olivia is also ironic. Cesario's youth and femininity do make a positive impression on Olivia, but she ends up falling in love with the servant, not the master. In other words, Cesario is too successful.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Myself Would Be His Wife:
At the end of Act 1, Scene 4, Viola comments on the irony of her situation: as Cesario, she is tasked with wooing Olivia on Orsino's behalf, but as Viola, she desires Orsino for herself:
Viola: Yet a barful strife!
Whoe’er I woo, myself would be his wife.
Later in the play, Viola's clandestine love for Orsino leads to a particularly poignant moment of dramatic irony. In Act 2, Scene 4, Orsino deduces that Cesario is in love, but he fails to realize that he himself is the object of that love:
Orsino: My life upon ’t, young though thou art, thine eye
Hath stayed upon some favor that it loves.
Hath it not, boy?
Viola: A little, by your favor.
Orsino: What kind of woman is ’t?
Viola: Of your complexion.
Orsino: She is not worth thee, then. What years, i’ faith?
Viola: About your years, my lord.
Orsino: Too old, by heaven.
Oblivious to the fact that this imaginary woman bears a strong resemblance to him, Orsino dismisses her as too old and plain for an attractive young man like Cesario. Ironically, if Orsino were aware of Cesario's true identity, he would likely approve of her attraction to him, since, as he argues later in the scene, he is of the belief that women should end up with older men.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Sonnet Love:
Throughout Twelfth Night, Shakespeare parodies the popular Elizabethan concept of "sonnet love." In 17th century England, romantic sonnets usually centered on the poet's desire for an idealized, unattainable love object, and these sonnets often contained a catalogue of the love object's physical attributes called a blazon.
When Viola attempts to woo Olivia on Orsino's behalf, in Act 1, Scene 5, she argues that it would be unfair for Olivia to die without having children:
Viola: ’Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white
Nature’s own sweet and cunning hand laid on.
Lady, you are the cruel’st she alive
If you will lead these graces to the grave
And leave the world no copy.
Viola's words echo some of Shakespeare's own sonnets, which often end with him urging the object of his love to procreate in order to immortalize their beauty. Sonnet 12, for example, ends with the line, "And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defence / Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence."
Viola's description of Olivia's "red and white" beauty also echoes this line from Sonnet 130: "I have seen roses damasked, red and white, / But no such roses see I in her cheeks." Sonnet 130 is itself a satire that pokes fun at many poetic conventions, including the blazon.
In response to Viola's argument, Olivia satirically blazons her own beauty:
Olivia: I will give
out divers schedules of my beauty. It shall be
inventoried and every particle and utensil labeled
to my will: as, item, two lips indifferent red; item,
two gray eyes with lids to them; item, one neck, one
chin, and so forth.
Rather than using metaphor to elevate her features, as a poet might, Olivia states them plainly. Her argument that she does not need to reproduce and can simply record her beauty on paper reflects sonnet 18, in which Shakespeare expresses his belief that beauty can be immortalized through poetry: "So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."
Ironically, even though Olivia rejects Orsino's sonnet-like love, she is immediately attracted to Viola/Cesario as a result of his poetic language. Although a blazon usually catalogues female features, Olivia's sudden infatuation with Cesario inspires her to blazon his physical and spiritual attributes:
Olivia: Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and spirit
Do give thee fivefold blazon.
Earlier in the play, in Act 1, Scene 4, Orsino also blazons Cesario's features in a manner that feels far from platonic, implying a homoerotic attraction:
Orsino: Diana’s lip
Is not more smooth and rubious, thy small pipe
Is as the maiden’s organ, shrill and sound,
And all is semblative a woman's part.
"Cesario," of course, is actually a woman, but in this moment, Orsino fully believes him to be a man. Shakespeare, of course, was no stranger to the poetic adoration of the male form, as a whopping 126 of his sonnets were addressed to an unnamed young man known as the "Fair Youth."
Related Themes:
Act 1, scene 5
Explanation and Analysis—Sonnet Love:
Throughout Twelfth Night, Shakespeare parodies the popular Elizabethan concept of "sonnet love." In 17th century England, romantic sonnets usually centered on the poet's desire for an idealized, unattainable love object, and these sonnets often contained a catalogue of the love object's physical attributes called a blazon.
When Viola attempts to woo Olivia on Orsino's behalf, in Act 1, Scene 5, she argues that it would be unfair for Olivia to die without having children:
Viola: ’Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white
Nature’s own sweet and cunning hand laid on.
Lady, you are the cruel’st she alive
If you will lead these graces to the grave
And leave the world no copy.
Viola's words echo some of Shakespeare's own sonnets, which often end with him urging the object of his love to procreate in order to immortalize their beauty. Sonnet 12, for example, ends with the line, "And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defence / Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence."
Viola's description of Olivia's "red and white" beauty also echoes this line from Sonnet 130: "I have seen roses damasked, red and white, / But no such roses see I in her cheeks." Sonnet 130 is itself a satire that pokes fun at many poetic conventions, including the blazon.
In response to Viola's argument, Olivia satirically blazons her own beauty:
Olivia: I will give
out divers schedules of my beauty. It shall be
inventoried and every particle and utensil labeled
to my will: as, item, two lips indifferent red; item,
two gray eyes with lids to them; item, one neck, one
chin, and so forth.
Rather than using metaphor to elevate her features, as a poet might, Olivia states them plainly. Her argument that she does not need to reproduce and can simply record her beauty on paper reflects sonnet 18, in which Shakespeare expresses his belief that beauty can be immortalized through poetry: "So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."
Ironically, even though Olivia rejects Orsino's sonnet-like love, she is immediately attracted to Viola/Cesario as a result of his poetic language. Although a blazon usually catalogues female features, Olivia's sudden infatuation with Cesario inspires her to blazon his physical and spiritual attributes:
Olivia: Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and spirit
Do give thee fivefold blazon.
Earlier in the play, in Act 1, Scene 4, Orsino also blazons Cesario's features in a manner that feels far from platonic, implying a homoerotic attraction:
Orsino: Diana’s lip
Is not more smooth and rubious, thy small pipe
Is as the maiden’s organ, shrill and sound,
And all is semblative a woman's part.
"Cesario," of course, is actually a woman, but in this moment, Orsino fully believes him to be a man. Shakespeare, of course, was no stranger to the poetic adoration of the male form, as a whopping 126 of his sonnets were addressed to an unnamed young man known as the "Fair Youth."
Related Themes:
Act 2, scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Viola and Sebastian:
The fact that neither Viola nor Sebastian know that the other sibling is alive, while the audience knows that both have survived the shipwreck and are in Illyria, leads to numerous moments of dramatic irony.
In Act 2, Scene 1, Sebastian comments to Antonio that he and his sister look very much alike:
Sebastian: A lady, sir, though it was said she much
resembled me, was yet of many accounted beautiful.
This comment, along with the fact that, in most productions, the actor playing Sebastian is costumed the same as the actor playing Viola, instantly signals to the audience that these two characters will be mistaken for one another.
Instances of dramatic irony occur numerous times thereafter. In Act 3, Scene 4, Viola does not recognize Antonio, which leads Antonio to believe that Sebastian has betrayed him. Antonio's despair is made more poignant by the fact that the audience knows that Sebastian has committed no such betrayal.
When Andrew, Toby, and Fabian attack Sebastian in Act 4, Scene 1, believing him to be Cesario, the ensuing fight is all the more funny because the audience knows the assailants have picked the wrong target. In the same scene, Sebastian's confusion when Olivia professes her love for him is funny precisely because the audience knows that she has mistaken him for his disguised twin.
This case of mistaken identity is also responsible for the tension that builds throughout the beginning of Act 5, Scene 1. First, the audience listens with pity and frustration to Antonio's impassioned speech in his own defense, knowing that, since Sebastian is not present, it will fall on deaf ears. The audience knows that Antonio is speaking the truth, but Orsino, who is not privy to the same information as the audience, dismisses him:
Orsino: But for thee, fellow: fellow, thy words are madness.
Three months this youth hath tended upon me
Later in the same scene, both Orsino and Olivia come to believe that Cesario has betrayed them, and there is a frightening moment when Orsino even threatens to kill Cesario. The audience, who knows that Viola has remained faithful, cannot help but sympathize with her plight.
This dramatic irony, and the building tension it creates, makes the eventual revelation of the truth all the more satisfying. Although Antonio does not receive a "happy ending" in the general sense of the phrase, Sebastian's arrival proves that he is telling the truth and reassures him that the man he loves did not actually betray him. And Orsino's genuine anguish when he believes that his trusted Cesario has married Olivia makes his declaration of love for Viola, which otherwise seems quite sudden, much more believable.
Related Themes:
Act 2, scene 3
Explanation and Analysis—Yellow Stockings:
All the scenes of Twelfth Night involving the prank that Maria pulls on Malvolio (the entirety of Act 2, Scene 5, the first part of Act 3, Scene 4, and all of Act 4, Scene 2) can be characterized as extended moments of dramatic irony.
In Act 2, Scene 3, the audience receives a full description of the scheme that Maria has devised to humiliate Malvolio:
Maria: I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of
love, wherein by the color of his beard, the shape of
his leg, the manner of his gait, the expressure of his
eye, forehead, and complexion, he shall find himself
most feelingly personated.
As a result of Maria's detailed description, nothing that occurs in Act 2, Scene 5 comes as a surprise to the audience members, who are fully expecting Malvolio to come across the forged letter and be convinced that Olivia is in love with him. Since the audience knows full well that the letter was written by Maria, Malvolio's reaction to it is all the more hilarious. The dramatic irony is heightened by the fact that, while the audience can see Toby, Andrew, and Fabian hiding on stage and overhear their comments, Malvolio is oblivious to their presence.
The dramatic irony in Act 3, Scene 4 is particularly complex, as different characters all have differing levels of knowledge, and this dramatic irony magnifies the scene's humor. While the audience is in on Maria's prank, Olivia has no knowledge of the forged letter, which results in her being totally baffled by Malvolio's behavior. Malvolio, by contrast, does not know that the letter was forged and is acting on the assumption that Olivia wrote it. As a result, we get exchanges like this one, where the humor entirely relies on the characters' lack of knowledge:
Malvolio: “Remember who commended thy yellow
stockings—”
Olivia: Thy yellow stockings?
Malvolio: “And wished to see thee cross-gartered.”
Olivia: Cross-gartered?
Finally, in Act 4, Scene 2, while the audience can clearly see that Feste is impersonating the character of Sir Topas, Malvolio can only hear his voice and therefore believes them to be two different people. Feste's disguise, which, as Maria points out, Malvolio cannot see, is more for the benefit of the audience:
Maria: Thou mightst have done this without thy beard
and gown. He sees thee not.
Related Themes:
Act 2, scene 4
Explanation and Analysis—Myself Would Be His Wife:
At the end of Act 1, Scene 4, Viola comments on the irony of her situation: as Cesario, she is tasked with wooing Olivia on Orsino's behalf, but as Viola, she desires Orsino for herself:
Viola: Yet a barful strife!
Whoe’er I woo, myself would be his wife.
Later in the play, Viola's clandestine love for Orsino leads to a particularly poignant moment of dramatic irony. In Act 2, Scene 4, Orsino deduces that Cesario is in love, but he fails to realize that he himself is the object of that love:
Orsino: My life upon ’t, young though thou art, thine eye
Hath stayed upon some favor that it loves.
Hath it not, boy?
Viola: A little, by your favor.
Orsino: What kind of woman is ’t?
Viola: Of your complexion.
Orsino: She is not worth thee, then. What years, i’ faith?
Viola: About your years, my lord.
Orsino: Too old, by heaven.
Oblivious to the fact that this imaginary woman bears a strong resemblance to him, Orsino dismisses her as too old and plain for an attractive young man like Cesario. Ironically, if Orsino were aware of Cesario's true identity, he would likely approve of her attraction to him, since, as he argues later in the scene, he is of the belief that women should end up with older men.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Men and Women's Love:
The conversation between Orsino and Viola/Cesario in Act 2, Scene 4 is rich with foreshadowing and irony. Having deduced that Cesario is in love, Orsino argues that, since women's beauty fades with age, Cesario should marry a woman who is younger than him. Otherwise, his affection will fade just as quickly, since men are less faithful when it comes to love than women are.
Orsino: For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,
Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,
More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn,
Than women’s are.
This statement foreshadows the end of the play, when Orsino forgets his supposed love for Olivia the instant he discovers Viola's true identity. In keeping with his argument, Viola, the woman he eventually decides to marry, is much younger than him.
Later in the same scene, Orsino argues that women do not love as ardently as men do:
Orsino: There is no woman’s sides
Can bide the beating of so strong a passion
As love doth give my heart; no woman’s heart
So big, to hold so much; they lack retention.
Alas, their love may be called appetite,
No motion of the liver but the palate,
That suffer surfeit, cloyment, and revolt;
But mine is all as hungry as the sea,
And can digest as much. Make no compare
Between that love a woman can bear me
And that I owe Olivia.
This argument is hilarious in its hypocrisy, since moments earlier Orsino stated that men fall out of love more easily than women. His claim that no woman could love him as fiercely as he loves Olivia is also ironic because, while Orsino's love for Olivia is entirely performative, the love that Viola feels for Orsino is entirely genuine.
In response, Viola asserts that, while men may be very effusive when it comes to expressing their love, this performance does not reflect sincere feeling:
Viola: 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.
Orsino dismisses this argument, but it is evidently true—while Orsino conceals his lack of true emotion with grand romantic gestures and flowery poetry, Viola remains silent despite her ardent love.
Related Themes:
Act 3, scene 4
Explanation and Analysis—Yellow Stockings:
All the scenes of Twelfth Night involving the prank that Maria pulls on Malvolio (the entirety of Act 2, Scene 5, the first part of Act 3, Scene 4, and all of Act 4, Scene 2) can be characterized as extended moments of dramatic irony.
In Act 2, Scene 3, the audience receives a full description of the scheme that Maria has devised to humiliate Malvolio:
Maria: I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of
love, wherein by the color of his beard, the shape of
his leg, the manner of his gait, the expressure of his
eye, forehead, and complexion, he shall find himself
most feelingly personated.
As a result of Maria's detailed description, nothing that occurs in Act 2, Scene 5 comes as a surprise to the audience members, who are fully expecting Malvolio to come across the forged letter and be convinced that Olivia is in love with him. Since the audience knows full well that the letter was written by Maria, Malvolio's reaction to it is all the more hilarious. The dramatic irony is heightened by the fact that, while the audience can see Toby, Andrew, and Fabian hiding on stage and overhear their comments, Malvolio is oblivious to their presence.
The dramatic irony in Act 3, Scene 4 is particularly complex, as different characters all have differing levels of knowledge, and this dramatic irony magnifies the scene's humor. While the audience is in on Maria's prank, Olivia has no knowledge of the forged letter, which results in her being totally baffled by Malvolio's behavior. Malvolio, by contrast, does not know that the letter was forged and is acting on the assumption that Olivia wrote it. As a result, we get exchanges like this one, where the humor entirely relies on the characters' lack of knowledge:
Malvolio: “Remember who commended thy yellow
stockings—”
Olivia: Thy yellow stockings?
Malvolio: “And wished to see thee cross-gartered.”
Olivia: Cross-gartered?
Finally, in Act 4, Scene 2, while the audience can clearly see that Feste is impersonating the character of Sir Topas, Malvolio can only hear his voice and therefore believes them to be two different people. Feste's disguise, which, as Maria points out, Malvolio cannot see, is more for the benefit of the audience:
Maria: Thou mightst have done this without thy beard
and gown. He sees thee not.
Related Themes:
Act 4, scene 2
Explanation and Analysis—Yellow Stockings:
All the scenes of Twelfth Night involving the prank that Maria pulls on Malvolio (the entirety of Act 2, Scene 5, the first part of Act 3, Scene 4, and all of Act 4, Scene 2) can be characterized as extended moments of dramatic irony.
In Act 2, Scene 3, the audience receives a full description of the scheme that Maria has devised to humiliate Malvolio:
Maria: I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of
love, wherein by the color of his beard, the shape of
his leg, the manner of his gait, the expressure of his
eye, forehead, and complexion, he shall find himself
most feelingly personated.
As a result of Maria's detailed description, nothing that occurs in Act 2, Scene 5 comes as a surprise to the audience members, who are fully expecting Malvolio to come across the forged letter and be convinced that Olivia is in love with him. Since the audience knows full well that the letter was written by Maria, Malvolio's reaction to it is all the more hilarious. The dramatic irony is heightened by the fact that, while the audience can see Toby, Andrew, and Fabian hiding on stage and overhear their comments, Malvolio is oblivious to their presence.
The dramatic irony in Act 3, Scene 4 is particularly complex, as different characters all have differing levels of knowledge, and this dramatic irony magnifies the scene's humor. While the audience is in on Maria's prank, Olivia has no knowledge of the forged letter, which results in her being totally baffled by Malvolio's behavior. Malvolio, by contrast, does not know that the letter was forged and is acting on the assumption that Olivia wrote it. As a result, we get exchanges like this one, where the humor entirely relies on the characters' lack of knowledge:
Malvolio: “Remember who commended thy yellow
stockings—”
Olivia: Thy yellow stockings?
Malvolio: “And wished to see thee cross-gartered.”
Olivia: Cross-gartered?
Finally, in Act 4, Scene 2, while the audience can clearly see that Feste is impersonating the character of Sir Topas, Malvolio can only hear his voice and therefore believes them to be two different people. Feste's disguise, which, as Maria points out, Malvolio cannot see, is more for the benefit of the audience:
Maria: Thou mightst have done this without thy beard
and gown. He sees thee not.
Related Themes:
Act 5, scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Viola and Sebastian:
The fact that neither Viola nor Sebastian know that the other sibling is alive, while the audience knows that both have survived the shipwreck and are in Illyria, leads to numerous moments of dramatic irony.
In Act 2, Scene 1, Sebastian comments to Antonio that he and his sister look very much alike:
Sebastian: A lady, sir, though it was said she much
resembled me, was yet of many accounted beautiful.
This comment, along with the fact that, in most productions, the actor playing Sebastian is costumed the same as the actor playing Viola, instantly signals to the audience that these two characters will be mistaken for one another.
Instances of dramatic irony occur numerous times thereafter. In Act 3, Scene 4, Viola does not recognize Antonio, which leads Antonio to believe that Sebastian has betrayed him. Antonio's despair is made more poignant by the fact that the audience knows that Sebastian has committed no such betrayal.
When Andrew, Toby, and Fabian attack Sebastian in Act 4, Scene 1, believing him to be Cesario, the ensuing fight is all the more funny because the audience knows the assailants have picked the wrong target. In the same scene, Sebastian's confusion when Olivia professes her love for him is funny precisely because the audience knows that she has mistaken him for his disguised twin.
This case of mistaken identity is also responsible for the tension that builds throughout the beginning of Act 5, Scene 1. First, the audience listens with pity and frustration to Antonio's impassioned speech in his own defense, knowing that, since Sebastian is not present, it will fall on deaf ears. The audience knows that Antonio is speaking the truth, but Orsino, who is not privy to the same information as the audience, dismisses him:
Orsino: But for thee, fellow: fellow, thy words are madness.
Three months this youth hath tended upon me
Later in the same scene, both Orsino and Olivia come to believe that Cesario has betrayed them, and there is a frightening moment when Orsino even threatens to kill Cesario. The audience, who knows that Viola has remained faithful, cannot help but sympathize with her plight.
This dramatic irony, and the building tension it creates, makes the eventual revelation of the truth all the more satisfying. Although Antonio does not receive a "happy ending" in the general sense of the phrase, Sebastian's arrival proves that he is telling the truth and reassures him that the man he loves did not actually betray him. And Orsino's genuine anguish when he believes that his trusted Cesario has married Olivia makes his declaration of love for Viola, which otherwise seems quite sudden, much more believable.
Related Themes:
