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Definition of Motif
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the central themes of a book... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of... read full definition
Act 1, scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Lovesickness:
Most physicians of Shakespeare's time were strong believers in humoral theory, which posited that the human body contained four vital fluids or "humors," and that an imbalance of these humors was the cause of all physical and mental ailments.
In Twelfth Night, both love and grief are compared to illness and associated with an imbalance of the humors. In Act 1, Scene 1, Orsino locates love in the stomach and associates an excess of it with feelings of nausea:
Orsino: If music be the food of love, play on.
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken and so die.
According to humoral theory, all the humors of the body originated from food digestion. As a result, abnormalities of the stomach had the potential to throw the entire body out of balance. If this imbalance resulted in an excess of black bile, the result was a melancholy temperament. Orsino describes himself as suffering from this very sickness, which he attributes to an excess of love.
In Act 1, Scene 3, Sir Toby Belch describes the grief that Olivia feels over her brother's death as a type of disease:
Toby: What a plague means my niece to take the death
of her brother thus? I am sure care’s an enemy to
life.
Just as Orsino indulges in an excess of love, Olivia seems to indulge in an excess of grief. Her mourning for her brother proves to be rather insincere, and Feste even comments that she is selfishly choosing to wallow in misery. Although Toby's statement that "care's an enemy to life" seems rather callous, it is also largely correct—by reveling in melancholy, Olivia is unfairly depriving herself of the joys of living.
In Act 1, Scene 5, Olivia criticizes Malvolio for his narcissism, which she believes is making him unwell:
Olivia: O, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste
with a distempered appetite.
During the Renaissance, the disease of melancholy was specifically associated with narcissistic self-love. Malvolio's specific brand of melancholy has made him irritable and humorless. Even Olivia, who is herself suffering from melancholy, is still able to appreciate Feste's jokes at her expense.
Later in the same scene, Olivia describes her sudden desire for Cesario as a type of illness:
Olivia: Even so quickly may one catch the plague?
Although illness, according to humoral theory, is generally regarded as something that originates from within the body, this metaphor characterizes it as an external force that can come upon an individual suddenly and without warning. Olivia eagerly welcomes this so-called plague, and in casting off her grief for her brother in favor of desire, she trades one form of melancholy for another.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—The Sea:
The ocean is a constant presence for the coastal nation of Illyria in Twelfth Night, and while it is often characterized as a cruel and insatiable force, it also represents the inconstancy of human emotion.
At multiple points throughout the play, Orsino compares his love to the sea. In Act 1, Scene 1, he characterizes the spirit of love as an all-consuming entity with endless capacity:
Orsino: O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea
And in Act 2, Scene 4, he describes his love as a ravenous creature that, like the ocean, destroys everything that it consumes:
Orsino: But mine is all as hungry as the sea,
And can digest as much.
But Orsino's perception of the sea is quite at odds with how it is actually presented throughout Twelfth Night. Viola and Sebastian both survive the shipwreck that occurs at the beginning of the play and eventually reunite, showing that things lost to the sea do not necessarily remain lost forever. The sea, instead of being insatiable and destructive, is quite fickle—it swallows things and people up only to spit them out again, causing only temporary confusion.
Orsino's love, likewise, is not as all-consuming as he makes it out to be, since he is easily able to transfer it from Olivia to Viola when he discovers that the latter is a woman, and a high-born one at that. His desires, like the constantly moving ocean, are in a state of flux. In Act 2, Scene 4, Feste even references the sea when he pokes fun at Orsino's inconstant nature:
Fool: I would have men of such
constancy put to sea, that their business might be
everything and their intent everywhere, for that’s it
that always makes a good voyage of nothing.
Although Viola, having narrowly escaped a watery death earlier in the play, has every reason to regard the ocean as a terrifying force, her descriptions of it in Act 3, Scene 4 are quite positive, reflective of the fact that she has just learned that her brother may be alive:
Viola: O, if it prove,
Tempests are kind, and salt waves fresh in love!
Just as waves creep up the shore at high tide and pull away at low tide, and just as an individual's emotions can oscillate wildly between joy and sorrow, love and hate, the identity of the ocean itself can also shift between different extremes.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Sovereign Thrones:
While a modern person would consider the brain to be the origin of all thoughts and feelings, people in Shakespeare's England located an individual's personality and emotions in their organs. In Twelfth Night, internal organs are a motif used to emphasize the emotions and character traits of different characters.
In Act 1, Scene 1, Orsino fantasizes that Olivia will one day love him unconditionally:
Orsino: [W]hen liver, brain, and heart,
These sovereign thrones, are all supplied, and filled
Her sweet perfections with one self king!
The Elizabethans considered the heart to be the centre of life and the source of love and desire. The brain, by contrast, contained a person's intellect, while the liver was the source of all other emotions. By referring to these organs as "sovereign thrones," Orsino portrays love, intellect, and emotion as the ruling forces of the human body. Olivia's body is akin to a monarchical nation, and Orsino desperately wishes to become king.
Orsino again mentions organs when he makes an argument about the nature of women's love in Act 2, Scene 4:
Orsino: Alas, their love may be called appetite,
No motion of the liver but the palate
Men's love, according to Orsino, is located in the liver as well as the heart. The Elizabethans believed that the liver created blood, which itself was regarded as the source of energy for the body and soul. Men's love, Orsino argues, is an active force that suffuses throughout the entire bloodstream, whereas women's love only engages the palate and is not deeply felt elsewhere in the body.
In Elizabethan medicine, the liver was also associated with bravery. In Act 3, Scene 2, Fabian attempts to convince Sir Andrew Aguecheek that Olivia's show of affection toward Cesario is a ruse intended to provoke his courage as well as his desire:
Fabian: She did show favor to the youth in your sight
only to exasperate you, to awake your dormouse
valor, to put fire in your heart and brimstone in
your liver.
Later in the same scene, Sir Toby Belch again draws on the liver's cultural connotations to assure Fabian that Andrew is far too cowardly to actually go through with his challenge to Cesario:
Toby: For Andrew, if he were
opened and you find so much blood in his liver as
will clog the foot of a flea, I’ll eat the rest of th’
anatomy.
In Shakespeare's time, a lack of blood in the liver was associated with cowardice, since it indicated that the body lacked its energizing force.
While the liver was believed to be the source of blood, the spleen was believed to be responsible for both the production and filtering out of black bile. Since too much of this humor was associated with melancholy, the spleen, which was responsible for ridding the body of excess black bile, was associated with feelings of joy and mirth. In Act 3, Scene 2, Maria references the spleen when she invites Toby and Fabian to come watch Malvolio make a fool of himself:
Maria: If you desire the spleen, and will laugh yourselves
into stitches, follow me.
Related Themes:
Act 1, scene 2
Explanation and Analysis—Chance:
Many events in Twelfth Night come about as a result of luck and pure coincidence. Through the motif of chance, Shakespeare comments on the general unpredictability of life and the lack of control that human beings have over their own fates.
In Act 1, Scene 2, Viola and the ship captain mention chance as they discuss the shipwreck and Sebastian's assumed death:
Captain: It is perchance that you yourself were saved.
Viola: O, my poor brother! And so perchance may he be.
Unbeknownst to Viola, both she and Sebastian have survived the shipwreck as the result of some miraculous chance. Indeed, it seems as though everyone on board has had the same stroke of good luck, as the captain and crew have also emerged unscathed. The shipwreck also fortunately occurs off the coast of Illyria, the country where the ship captain was born, which allows him to provide Viola with detailed information about the people who live there.
Later on in the play, Sebastian happens to be passing through the city at the precise time that Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek are planning to challenge Cesario to a duel, and this case of serendipity is what sets the entire last act of the play in motion.
Since Twelfth Night is a comedy, these instances of chance inevitably lead to general hilarity and eventual happy endings for most of the characters, but audience members familiar with Shakespeare's other works would be keenly aware that such unpredictability and lack of control can just as easily lead to tragedy. In Romeo and Juliet, for example, a series of delays and miscommunications convince Romeo that his sleeping lover is actually dead and drive him to commit suicide moments before she wakes. If the genre of Twelfth Night were different, the play's instances of chance and miscommunication would likely result in much grimmer consequences.
Act 1, scene 3
Explanation and Analysis—Lovesickness:
Most physicians of Shakespeare's time were strong believers in humoral theory, which posited that the human body contained four vital fluids or "humors," and that an imbalance of these humors was the cause of all physical and mental ailments.
In Twelfth Night, both love and grief are compared to illness and associated with an imbalance of the humors. In Act 1, Scene 1, Orsino locates love in the stomach and associates an excess of it with feelings of nausea:
Orsino: If music be the food of love, play on.
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken and so die.
According to humoral theory, all the humors of the body originated from food digestion. As a result, abnormalities of the stomach had the potential to throw the entire body out of balance. If this imbalance resulted in an excess of black bile, the result was a melancholy temperament. Orsino describes himself as suffering from this very sickness, which he attributes to an excess of love.
In Act 1, Scene 3, Sir Toby Belch describes the grief that Olivia feels over her brother's death as a type of disease:
Toby: What a plague means my niece to take the death
of her brother thus? I am sure care’s an enemy to
life.
Just as Orsino indulges in an excess of love, Olivia seems to indulge in an excess of grief. Her mourning for her brother proves to be rather insincere, and Feste even comments that she is selfishly choosing to wallow in misery. Although Toby's statement that "care's an enemy to life" seems rather callous, it is also largely correct—by reveling in melancholy, Olivia is unfairly depriving herself of the joys of living.
In Act 1, Scene 5, Olivia criticizes Malvolio for his narcissism, which she believes is making him unwell:
Olivia: O, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste
with a distempered appetite.
During the Renaissance, the disease of melancholy was specifically associated with narcissistic self-love. Malvolio's specific brand of melancholy has made him irritable and humorless. Even Olivia, who is herself suffering from melancholy, is still able to appreciate Feste's jokes at her expense.
Later in the same scene, Olivia describes her sudden desire for Cesario as a type of illness:
Olivia: Even so quickly may one catch the plague?
Although illness, according to humoral theory, is generally regarded as something that originates from within the body, this metaphor characterizes it as an external force that can come upon an individual suddenly and without warning. Olivia eagerly welcomes this so-called plague, and in casting off her grief for her brother in favor of desire, she trades one form of melancholy for another.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Astrology:
In the Elizabethan era, people strongly believed that the motion of heavenly bodies could influence human fate and behavior. The characters in Twelfth Night also subscribe to this belief—in Act 3, Scene 4, for example, Olivia characterizes Malvolio's bizarre behavior as "midsummer madness," i.e. insanity brought on by the midsummer moon. Throughout the play, several other characters make references to stars and planets, and this motif underscores the idea that human personality and destiny are both predetermined.
In Act 1, Scene 3, Sir Toby Belch encourages Sir Andrew Aguecheek to "set about some revels" by invoking astrology:
Toby: Were we not born under
Taurus?
Andrew: Taurus? That’s sides and heart.
Toby: No, sir, it is legs and thighs.
In the Western zodiac, individuals born between late April and late May are born under the sign of Taurus, the bull constellation. Andrew states that this constellation governs a person's sides and heart, but Toby claims that it actually governs the legs and thighs. Toby reasons that, since both he and Andrew were born under this sign, they are naturally inclined to dance. As it turns out, both men are incorrect—according to Plato, the sign of Taurus is actually associated with the throat.
In Act 1, Scene 4, Orsino expresses his belief that Cesario is well-suited for the job of wooing Olivia:
Orsino: I know thy constellation is right apt
For this affair.
Since Cesario has such a womanly appearance and nature, Orsino reasons that Olivia will be more receptive to him, and he attributes this feminine disposition to the constellation under which Cesario was born. Orsino ends up being partially correct—Cesario is the best man for the job, but his natural inclination is due to the fact that he is actually a woman in disguise, not his astrological sign.
In Act 2, Scene 1, Sebastian fears that the poor arrangement of his stars may negatively affect Antonio:
Sebastian: My stars shine darkly
over me. The malignancy of my fate might perhaps
distemper yours.
All of Sebastian's misfortunes, he reasons, were predetermined. As a result of the particular arrangement of stars under which he was born, he is doomed to suffer bad luck, and he does not wish his fate to influence Antonio's. These lines are somewhat contradictory when it comes to the matter of fate and free will—while Sebastian regards his own destiny as fixed, he believes that Antonio's actions will affect his fate.
Related Themes:
Act 1, scene 4
Explanation and Analysis—Astrology:
In the Elizabethan era, people strongly believed that the motion of heavenly bodies could influence human fate and behavior. The characters in Twelfth Night also subscribe to this belief—in Act 3, Scene 4, for example, Olivia characterizes Malvolio's bizarre behavior as "midsummer madness," i.e. insanity brought on by the midsummer moon. Throughout the play, several other characters make references to stars and planets, and this motif underscores the idea that human personality and destiny are both predetermined.
In Act 1, Scene 3, Sir Toby Belch encourages Sir Andrew Aguecheek to "set about some revels" by invoking astrology:
Toby: Were we not born under
Taurus?
Andrew: Taurus? That’s sides and heart.
Toby: No, sir, it is legs and thighs.
In the Western zodiac, individuals born between late April and late May are born under the sign of Taurus, the bull constellation. Andrew states that this constellation governs a person's sides and heart, but Toby claims that it actually governs the legs and thighs. Toby reasons that, since both he and Andrew were born under this sign, they are naturally inclined to dance. As it turns out, both men are incorrect—according to Plato, the sign of Taurus is actually associated with the throat.
In Act 1, Scene 4, Orsino expresses his belief that Cesario is well-suited for the job of wooing Olivia:
Orsino: I know thy constellation is right apt
For this affair.
Since Cesario has such a womanly appearance and nature, Orsino reasons that Olivia will be more receptive to him, and he attributes this feminine disposition to the constellation under which Cesario was born. Orsino ends up being partially correct—Cesario is the best man for the job, but his natural inclination is due to the fact that he is actually a woman in disguise, not his astrological sign.
In Act 2, Scene 1, Sebastian fears that the poor arrangement of his stars may negatively affect Antonio:
Sebastian: My stars shine darkly
over me. The malignancy of my fate might perhaps
distemper yours.
All of Sebastian's misfortunes, he reasons, were predetermined. As a result of the particular arrangement of stars under which he was born, he is doomed to suffer bad luck, and he does not wish his fate to influence Antonio's. These lines are somewhat contradictory when it comes to the matter of fate and free will—while Sebastian regards his own destiny as fixed, he believes that Antonio's actions will affect his fate.
Related Themes:
Act 1, scene 5
Explanation and Analysis—Lovesickness:
Most physicians of Shakespeare's time were strong believers in humoral theory, which posited that the human body contained four vital fluids or "humors," and that an imbalance of these humors was the cause of all physical and mental ailments.
In Twelfth Night, both love and grief are compared to illness and associated with an imbalance of the humors. In Act 1, Scene 1, Orsino locates love in the stomach and associates an excess of it with feelings of nausea:
Orsino: If music be the food of love, play on.
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken and so die.
According to humoral theory, all the humors of the body originated from food digestion. As a result, abnormalities of the stomach had the potential to throw the entire body out of balance. If this imbalance resulted in an excess of black bile, the result was a melancholy temperament. Orsino describes himself as suffering from this very sickness, which he attributes to an excess of love.
In Act 1, Scene 3, Sir Toby Belch describes the grief that Olivia feels over her brother's death as a type of disease:
Toby: What a plague means my niece to take the death
of her brother thus? I am sure care’s an enemy to
life.
Just as Orsino indulges in an excess of love, Olivia seems to indulge in an excess of grief. Her mourning for her brother proves to be rather insincere, and Feste even comments that she is selfishly choosing to wallow in misery. Although Toby's statement that "care's an enemy to life" seems rather callous, it is also largely correct—by reveling in melancholy, Olivia is unfairly depriving herself of the joys of living.
In Act 1, Scene 5, Olivia criticizes Malvolio for his narcissism, which she believes is making him unwell:
Olivia: O, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste
with a distempered appetite.
During the Renaissance, the disease of melancholy was specifically associated with narcissistic self-love. Malvolio's specific brand of melancholy has made him irritable and humorless. Even Olivia, who is herself suffering from melancholy, is still able to appreciate Feste's jokes at her expense.
Later in the same scene, Olivia describes her sudden desire for Cesario as a type of illness:
Olivia: Even so quickly may one catch the plague?
Although illness, according to humoral theory, is generally regarded as something that originates from within the body, this metaphor characterizes it as an external force that can come upon an individual suddenly and without warning. Olivia eagerly welcomes this so-called plague, and in casting off her grief for her brother in favor of desire, she trades one form of melancholy for another.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Trees and Flowers:
Throughout Twelfth Night, several different characters make use of natural imagery. The twin motifs of trees and flowers are used at different points throughout the play to symbolize beauty, love, and death.
In Act 2, Scene 4, Orsino introduces flowers as a symbol of inconstant love:
Orsino: For women are as roses, whose fair flower,
Being once displayed, doth fall that very hour.
A woman's beauty, Orsino argues, is as short-lived as a rose that blooms and dies in a single season. As a result, men's love is likewise ephemeral. This floral motif continues in Act 3, Scene 1, when Olivia swears her love to Cesario "by the roses of the spring." Since both the flower and the season are temporary, the image of springtime roses is especially fleeting, and Olivia's imagery implies that her feelings are not as enduring as she claims. This implication proves true later in the play, when her love is easily transferred from Cesario to Sebastian.
Feste's song in Act 2, Scene 4 contrasts the ephemeral nature of flowers with the eternity of death:
Fool: Not a flower, not a flower sweet
On my black coffin let there be strown
In this song, Feste also makes reference to "sad cypress" and a "shroud of white, stuck all with yew." Cypress and yew trees have historically been associated with death due to their use in burial and funerary rites, but since they are evergreens, they also symbolize eternal life.
Viola's speech to Olivia In Act 1, Scene 5 associates the image of trees with devotion:
Viola: Make me a willow cabin at your gate
This image of the "willow cabin," which succeeds where Orsino's flowery love poetry failed in winning Olivia's love, may actually be a political allusion. When the Spanish Armada invaded England in 1588, Queen Elizabeth I traveled to West Tilbury, Essex, to deliver an address to the troops assembled there. In her speech, Elizabeth proclaimed her eternal devotion to the English people and pledged to take up arms herself against the armada. According to author James Aske, the fields of Tilbury, where Elizabeth delivered this famous address, were filled with willow trees.
Considering the notable similarities between Elizabeth I and the character of Olivia, it's quite possible that the image of the willow cabin is meant to evoke the queen's devotion to her country. This line, paired with Feste's song, establishes trees as a symbol of steadfast, eternal love, which sharply contrasts with the inconstant love represented by flowers.
Related Themes:
Act 2, scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Astrology:
In the Elizabethan era, people strongly believed that the motion of heavenly bodies could influence human fate and behavior. The characters in Twelfth Night also subscribe to this belief—in Act 3, Scene 4, for example, Olivia characterizes Malvolio's bizarre behavior as "midsummer madness," i.e. insanity brought on by the midsummer moon. Throughout the play, several other characters make references to stars and planets, and this motif underscores the idea that human personality and destiny are both predetermined.
In Act 1, Scene 3, Sir Toby Belch encourages Sir Andrew Aguecheek to "set about some revels" by invoking astrology:
Toby: Were we not born under
Taurus?
Andrew: Taurus? That’s sides and heart.
Toby: No, sir, it is legs and thighs.
In the Western zodiac, individuals born between late April and late May are born under the sign of Taurus, the bull constellation. Andrew states that this constellation governs a person's sides and heart, but Toby claims that it actually governs the legs and thighs. Toby reasons that, since both he and Andrew were born under this sign, they are naturally inclined to dance. As it turns out, both men are incorrect—according to Plato, the sign of Taurus is actually associated with the throat.
In Act 1, Scene 4, Orsino expresses his belief that Cesario is well-suited for the job of wooing Olivia:
Orsino: I know thy constellation is right apt
For this affair.
Since Cesario has such a womanly appearance and nature, Orsino reasons that Olivia will be more receptive to him, and he attributes this feminine disposition to the constellation under which Cesario was born. Orsino ends up being partially correct—Cesario is the best man for the job, but his natural inclination is due to the fact that he is actually a woman in disguise, not his astrological sign.
In Act 2, Scene 1, Sebastian fears that the poor arrangement of his stars may negatively affect Antonio:
Sebastian: My stars shine darkly
over me. The malignancy of my fate might perhaps
distemper yours.
All of Sebastian's misfortunes, he reasons, were predetermined. As a result of the particular arrangement of stars under which he was born, he is doomed to suffer bad luck, and he does not wish his fate to influence Antonio's. These lines are somewhat contradictory when it comes to the matter of fate and free will—while Sebastian regards his own destiny as fixed, he believes that Antonio's actions will affect his fate.
Related Themes:
Act 2, scene 2
Explanation and Analysis—Letters and Tokens:
Over the course of Twelfth Night, numerous characters exchange letters and tokens. As the play progresses, this motif comes to represent the mutable nature of gender and class.
In Act 1, Scene 5, Olivia claims that Cesario has left his ring behind and directs Malvolio to return it to him. Although the ring actually belongs to Olivia and is intended as a token of her affection, Malvolio regards it as a symbol of Orsino's unwanted advances. The gender politics of this item differ drastically depending on who is looking at it. For Malvolio, who himself desires Olivia, the ring represents masculine sexual aggression. But when Viola receives the ring in Act 2, Scene 2, she correctly interprets it as a symbol of feminine sexual agency:
Viola: The cunning of her passion
Invites me in this churlish messenger.
None of my lord’s ring? Why, he sent her none!
Olivia later gives Cesario a small portrait of herself and gives Sebastian a pearl. These tokens, along with the jewel that Orsino asks Cesario to give to Olivia in Act 2, Scene 4, emphasize how love and courtship are intimately tied to class. Not only do Orsino and Olivia show their affection by giving people expensive gifts, they also use their servants to deliver them, further demonstrating their privilege. In Olivia's case, wealth and status have actually allowed her to take on a more dominant, masculine social role: instead of merely receiving gifts, she bestows them.
Letters also serve to underscore the politics of gender and class. In Act 3, Scene 4, Sir Andrew Aguecheek writes a letter to Cesario challenging him to a duel. Although Andrew views the duel as a means to prove his courage and masculinity, Sir Toby Belch notes that his nonsensical letter actually does just the opposite:
Toby: Therefore,
this letter, being so excellently ignorant, will breed
no terror in the youth. He will find it comes from a
clodpoll.
This scene pokes fun at the ridiculous pageantry that goes into masculine gender performance. When Toby resolves to deliver the challenge himself and, in doing so, present Sir Andrew as a far more formidable opponent than he really is, he illustrates the artificial, changeable nature of male identity.
Letters also serve to demonstrate the changeable nature of social class. Maria's ability to imitate her mistress's handwriting—an ability she uses to deceive Malvolio with a forged letter in Act 2, Scene 5—allows her to figuratively occupy a higher social rank. But the forged letter also ends up literally elevating her social status, since this act of cunning, according to Fabian's explanation in Act 5, Scene 1, is what inspires Toby to marry her:
Fabian: Maria writ
The letter at Sir Toby’s great importance,
In recompense whereof he hath married her.
Related Themes:
Act 2, scene 4
Explanation and Analysis—The Sea:
The ocean is a constant presence for the coastal nation of Illyria in Twelfth Night, and while it is often characterized as a cruel and insatiable force, it also represents the inconstancy of human emotion.
At multiple points throughout the play, Orsino compares his love to the sea. In Act 1, Scene 1, he characterizes the spirit of love as an all-consuming entity with endless capacity:
Orsino: O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea
And in Act 2, Scene 4, he describes his love as a ravenous creature that, like the ocean, destroys everything that it consumes:
Orsino: But mine is all as hungry as the sea,
And can digest as much.
But Orsino's perception of the sea is quite at odds with how it is actually presented throughout Twelfth Night. Viola and Sebastian both survive the shipwreck that occurs at the beginning of the play and eventually reunite, showing that things lost to the sea do not necessarily remain lost forever. The sea, instead of being insatiable and destructive, is quite fickle—it swallows things and people up only to spit them out again, causing only temporary confusion.
Orsino's love, likewise, is not as all-consuming as he makes it out to be, since he is easily able to transfer it from Olivia to Viola when he discovers that the latter is a woman, and a high-born one at that. His desires, like the constantly moving ocean, are in a state of flux. In Act 2, Scene 4, Feste even references the sea when he pokes fun at Orsino's inconstant nature:
Fool: I would have men of such
constancy put to sea, that their business might be
everything and their intent everywhere, for that’s it
that always makes a good voyage of nothing.
Although Viola, having narrowly escaped a watery death earlier in the play, has every reason to regard the ocean as a terrifying force, her descriptions of it in Act 3, Scene 4 are quite positive, reflective of the fact that she has just learned that her brother may be alive:
Viola: O, if it prove,
Tempests are kind, and salt waves fresh in love!
Just as waves creep up the shore at high tide and pull away at low tide, and just as an individual's emotions can oscillate wildly between joy and sorrow, love and hate, the identity of the ocean itself can also shift between different extremes.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Costumes:
Twelfth Night is a play filled with costumes and disguises. In addition to creating endless moments of humor and mistaken identity, clothing acts as a motif that represents the fluidity of human identity and emotion.
One important piece of clothing is Olivia's veil, which is symbolic of her grief over her brother's death. This veil, as demonstrated during Cesario's visit in Act 1, Scene 5, can easily be removed, which implies that this grief is performative. Just as Orsino is more in love with the idea of being in love, Olivia is more committed to the appearance of mourning than she is to the memory of her brother. Her grief is not deeply felt; she can take it off and put it back on whenever she chooses.
In Act 3, Scene 1, while confessing her love to Cesario, Olivia also calls attention to the material of her mourning clothes:
Olivia: A cypress, not a bosom,
Hides my heart.
Cypress is a type of lightweight, gauzy black fabric often used in mourning wear. With this metaphor, Olivia is both asserting that her heart is on her sleeve and connecting a symbol of grief to the concept of love. Ironically, since cypress fabric is semi-transparent, it doesn't actually "hide" much of anything. Olivia's heart (as well as her body) is on full display, which undermines the chaste image that her mourning clothes are meant to present. The identity of these clothes, like Olivia's emotions, are fluid—on one hand, they represent grief and concealment, while they represent desire and vulnerability on the other.
In Act 2, Scene 4, Feste uses a clothing metaphor to poke fun at Orsino's inconstant nature:
Fool: Now the melancholy god protect thee and the
tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy
mind is a very opal.
Since Orsino's mind is as changeable as the color of an opal, a stone that takes on different hues depending on where the light hits it, Feste quips that he ought to dress in color-changing clothes. While Orsino makes a show of being truly in love with Olivia, an opal doublet would make his appearance accurately reflect his nature.
In Act 3, Scene 1, Feste uses another clothing metaphor to point out the unreliability of language:
Fool: A sentence is
but a chev’ril glove to a good wit. How quickly the
wrong side may be turned outward!
Just as turning a glove inside out renders it useless, Feste reasons, playing around with words makes them meaningless. This metaphor may be a jab at Orsino, whose flowery love poetry reflects his lack of genuine feeling.
Finally, the clothes Viola wears when she is disguised as a man help to illustrate the fluid nature of her gender and of Orsino's sexuality. In Act 5, Scene 1, Orsino continues to address Viola as Cesario while she wears men's clothing:
Orsino: Cesario, come,
For so you shall be while you are a man.
But when in other habits you are seen,
Orsino’s mistress, and his fancy’s queen.
Orsino's language is precise: Viola is not merely dressed as a man, while she wears these clothes she is a man, and she will only become a woman when she dons her "woman's weeds." And although Orsino wishes to see her dressed as a woman, he falls in love with her while she is still Cesario, suggesting that his attraction to her is not wholly dependent on either her gender presentation or her gender identity.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Trees and Flowers:
Throughout Twelfth Night, several different characters make use of natural imagery. The twin motifs of trees and flowers are used at different points throughout the play to symbolize beauty, love, and death.
In Act 2, Scene 4, Orsino introduces flowers as a symbol of inconstant love:
Orsino: For women are as roses, whose fair flower,
Being once displayed, doth fall that very hour.
A woman's beauty, Orsino argues, is as short-lived as a rose that blooms and dies in a single season. As a result, men's love is likewise ephemeral. This floral motif continues in Act 3, Scene 1, when Olivia swears her love to Cesario "by the roses of the spring." Since both the flower and the season are temporary, the image of springtime roses is especially fleeting, and Olivia's imagery implies that her feelings are not as enduring as she claims. This implication proves true later in the play, when her love is easily transferred from Cesario to Sebastian.
Feste's song in Act 2, Scene 4 contrasts the ephemeral nature of flowers with the eternity of death:
Fool: Not a flower, not a flower sweet
On my black coffin let there be strown
In this song, Feste also makes reference to "sad cypress" and a "shroud of white, stuck all with yew." Cypress and yew trees have historically been associated with death due to their use in burial and funerary rites, but since they are evergreens, they also symbolize eternal life.
Viola's speech to Olivia In Act 1, Scene 5 associates the image of trees with devotion:
Viola: Make me a willow cabin at your gate
This image of the "willow cabin," which succeeds where Orsino's flowery love poetry failed in winning Olivia's love, may actually be a political allusion. When the Spanish Armada invaded England in 1588, Queen Elizabeth I traveled to West Tilbury, Essex, to deliver an address to the troops assembled there. In her speech, Elizabeth proclaimed her eternal devotion to the English people and pledged to take up arms herself against the armada. According to author James Aske, the fields of Tilbury, where Elizabeth delivered this famous address, were filled with willow trees.
Considering the notable similarities between Elizabeth I and the character of Olivia, it's quite possible that the image of the willow cabin is meant to evoke the queen's devotion to her country. This line, paired with Feste's song, establishes trees as a symbol of steadfast, eternal love, which sharply contrasts with the inconstant love represented by flowers.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Sovereign Thrones:
While a modern person would consider the brain to be the origin of all thoughts and feelings, people in Shakespeare's England located an individual's personality and emotions in their organs. In Twelfth Night, internal organs are a motif used to emphasize the emotions and character traits of different characters.
In Act 1, Scene 1, Orsino fantasizes that Olivia will one day love him unconditionally:
Orsino: [W]hen liver, brain, and heart,
These sovereign thrones, are all supplied, and filled
Her sweet perfections with one self king!
The Elizabethans considered the heart to be the centre of life and the source of love and desire. The brain, by contrast, contained a person's intellect, while the liver was the source of all other emotions. By referring to these organs as "sovereign thrones," Orsino portrays love, intellect, and emotion as the ruling forces of the human body. Olivia's body is akin to a monarchical nation, and Orsino desperately wishes to become king.
Orsino again mentions organs when he makes an argument about the nature of women's love in Act 2, Scene 4:
Orsino: Alas, their love may be called appetite,
No motion of the liver but the palate
Men's love, according to Orsino, is located in the liver as well as the heart. The Elizabethans believed that the liver created blood, which itself was regarded as the source of energy for the body and soul. Men's love, Orsino argues, is an active force that suffuses throughout the entire bloodstream, whereas women's love only engages the palate and is not deeply felt elsewhere in the body.
In Elizabethan medicine, the liver was also associated with bravery. In Act 3, Scene 2, Fabian attempts to convince Sir Andrew Aguecheek that Olivia's show of affection toward Cesario is a ruse intended to provoke his courage as well as his desire:
Fabian: She did show favor to the youth in your sight
only to exasperate you, to awake your dormouse
valor, to put fire in your heart and brimstone in
your liver.
Later in the same scene, Sir Toby Belch again draws on the liver's cultural connotations to assure Fabian that Andrew is far too cowardly to actually go through with his challenge to Cesario:
Toby: For Andrew, if he were
opened and you find so much blood in his liver as
will clog the foot of a flea, I’ll eat the rest of th’
anatomy.
In Shakespeare's time, a lack of blood in the liver was associated with cowardice, since it indicated that the body lacked its energizing force.
While the liver was believed to be the source of blood, the spleen was believed to be responsible for both the production and filtering out of black bile. Since too much of this humor was associated with melancholy, the spleen, which was responsible for ridding the body of excess black bile, was associated with feelings of joy and mirth. In Act 3, Scene 2, Maria references the spleen when she invites Toby and Fabian to come watch Malvolio make a fool of himself:
Maria: If you desire the spleen, and will laugh yourselves
into stitches, follow me.
Related Themes:
Act 3, scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Costumes:
Twelfth Night is a play filled with costumes and disguises. In addition to creating endless moments of humor and mistaken identity, clothing acts as a motif that represents the fluidity of human identity and emotion.
One important piece of clothing is Olivia's veil, which is symbolic of her grief over her brother's death. This veil, as demonstrated during Cesario's visit in Act 1, Scene 5, can easily be removed, which implies that this grief is performative. Just as Orsino is more in love with the idea of being in love, Olivia is more committed to the appearance of mourning than she is to the memory of her brother. Her grief is not deeply felt; she can take it off and put it back on whenever she chooses.
In Act 3, Scene 1, while confessing her love to Cesario, Olivia also calls attention to the material of her mourning clothes:
Olivia: A cypress, not a bosom,
Hides my heart.
Cypress is a type of lightweight, gauzy black fabric often used in mourning wear. With this metaphor, Olivia is both asserting that her heart is on her sleeve and connecting a symbol of grief to the concept of love. Ironically, since cypress fabric is semi-transparent, it doesn't actually "hide" much of anything. Olivia's heart (as well as her body) is on full display, which undermines the chaste image that her mourning clothes are meant to present. The identity of these clothes, like Olivia's emotions, are fluid—on one hand, they represent grief and concealment, while they represent desire and vulnerability on the other.
In Act 2, Scene 4, Feste uses a clothing metaphor to poke fun at Orsino's inconstant nature:
Fool: Now the melancholy god protect thee and the
tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy
mind is a very opal.
Since Orsino's mind is as changeable as the color of an opal, a stone that takes on different hues depending on where the light hits it, Feste quips that he ought to dress in color-changing clothes. While Orsino makes a show of being truly in love with Olivia, an opal doublet would make his appearance accurately reflect his nature.
In Act 3, Scene 1, Feste uses another clothing metaphor to point out the unreliability of language:
Fool: A sentence is
but a chev’ril glove to a good wit. How quickly the
wrong side may be turned outward!
Just as turning a glove inside out renders it useless, Feste reasons, playing around with words makes them meaningless. This metaphor may be a jab at Orsino, whose flowery love poetry reflects his lack of genuine feeling.
Finally, the clothes Viola wears when she is disguised as a man help to illustrate the fluid nature of her gender and of Orsino's sexuality. In Act 5, Scene 1, Orsino continues to address Viola as Cesario while she wears men's clothing:
Orsino: Cesario, come,
For so you shall be while you are a man.
But when in other habits you are seen,
Orsino’s mistress, and his fancy’s queen.
Orsino's language is precise: Viola is not merely dressed as a man, while she wears these clothes she is a man, and she will only become a woman when she dons her "woman's weeds." And although Orsino wishes to see her dressed as a woman, he falls in love with her while she is still Cesario, suggesting that his attraction to her is not wholly dependent on either her gender presentation or her gender identity.
Related Themes:
Act 3, scene 2
Explanation and Analysis—Sovereign Thrones:
While a modern person would consider the brain to be the origin of all thoughts and feelings, people in Shakespeare's England located an individual's personality and emotions in their organs. In Twelfth Night, internal organs are a motif used to emphasize the emotions and character traits of different characters.
In Act 1, Scene 1, Orsino fantasizes that Olivia will one day love him unconditionally:
Orsino: [W]hen liver, brain, and heart,
These sovereign thrones, are all supplied, and filled
Her sweet perfections with one self king!
The Elizabethans considered the heart to be the centre of life and the source of love and desire. The brain, by contrast, contained a person's intellect, while the liver was the source of all other emotions. By referring to these organs as "sovereign thrones," Orsino portrays love, intellect, and emotion as the ruling forces of the human body. Olivia's body is akin to a monarchical nation, and Orsino desperately wishes to become king.
Orsino again mentions organs when he makes an argument about the nature of women's love in Act 2, Scene 4:
Orsino: Alas, their love may be called appetite,
No motion of the liver but the palate
Men's love, according to Orsino, is located in the liver as well as the heart. The Elizabethans believed that the liver created blood, which itself was regarded as the source of energy for the body and soul. Men's love, Orsino argues, is an active force that suffuses throughout the entire bloodstream, whereas women's love only engages the palate and is not deeply felt elsewhere in the body.
In Elizabethan medicine, the liver was also associated with bravery. In Act 3, Scene 2, Fabian attempts to convince Sir Andrew Aguecheek that Olivia's show of affection toward Cesario is a ruse intended to provoke his courage as well as his desire:
Fabian: She did show favor to the youth in your sight
only to exasperate you, to awake your dormouse
valor, to put fire in your heart and brimstone in
your liver.
Later in the same scene, Sir Toby Belch again draws on the liver's cultural connotations to assure Fabian that Andrew is far too cowardly to actually go through with his challenge to Cesario:
Toby: For Andrew, if he were
opened and you find so much blood in his liver as
will clog the foot of a flea, I’ll eat the rest of th’
anatomy.
In Shakespeare's time, a lack of blood in the liver was associated with cowardice, since it indicated that the body lacked its energizing force.
While the liver was believed to be the source of blood, the spleen was believed to be responsible for both the production and filtering out of black bile. Since too much of this humor was associated with melancholy, the spleen, which was responsible for ridding the body of excess black bile, was associated with feelings of joy and mirth. In Act 3, Scene 2, Maria references the spleen when she invites Toby and Fabian to come watch Malvolio make a fool of himself:
Maria: If you desire the spleen, and will laugh yourselves
into stitches, follow me.
Related Themes:
Act 3, scene 4
Explanation and Analysis—The Sea:
The ocean is a constant presence for the coastal nation of Illyria in Twelfth Night, and while it is often characterized as a cruel and insatiable force, it also represents the inconstancy of human emotion.
At multiple points throughout the play, Orsino compares his love to the sea. In Act 1, Scene 1, he characterizes the spirit of love as an all-consuming entity with endless capacity:
Orsino: O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea
And in Act 2, Scene 4, he describes his love as a ravenous creature that, like the ocean, destroys everything that it consumes:
Orsino: But mine is all as hungry as the sea,
And can digest as much.
But Orsino's perception of the sea is quite at odds with how it is actually presented throughout Twelfth Night. Viola and Sebastian both survive the shipwreck that occurs at the beginning of the play and eventually reunite, showing that things lost to the sea do not necessarily remain lost forever. The sea, instead of being insatiable and destructive, is quite fickle—it swallows things and people up only to spit them out again, causing only temporary confusion.
Orsino's love, likewise, is not as all-consuming as he makes it out to be, since he is easily able to transfer it from Olivia to Viola when he discovers that the latter is a woman, and a high-born one at that. His desires, like the constantly moving ocean, are in a state of flux. In Act 2, Scene 4, Feste even references the sea when he pokes fun at Orsino's inconstant nature:
Fool: I would have men of such
constancy put to sea, that their business might be
everything and their intent everywhere, for that’s it
that always makes a good voyage of nothing.
Although Viola, having narrowly escaped a watery death earlier in the play, has every reason to regard the ocean as a terrifying force, her descriptions of it in Act 3, Scene 4 are quite positive, reflective of the fact that she has just learned that her brother may be alive:
Viola: O, if it prove,
Tempests are kind, and salt waves fresh in love!
Just as waves creep up the shore at high tide and pull away at low tide, and just as an individual's emotions can oscillate wildly between joy and sorrow, love and hate, the identity of the ocean itself can also shift between different extremes.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Letters and Tokens:
Over the course of Twelfth Night, numerous characters exchange letters and tokens. As the play progresses, this motif comes to represent the mutable nature of gender and class.
In Act 1, Scene 5, Olivia claims that Cesario has left his ring behind and directs Malvolio to return it to him. Although the ring actually belongs to Olivia and is intended as a token of her affection, Malvolio regards it as a symbol of Orsino's unwanted advances. The gender politics of this item differ drastically depending on who is looking at it. For Malvolio, who himself desires Olivia, the ring represents masculine sexual aggression. But when Viola receives the ring in Act 2, Scene 2, she correctly interprets it as a symbol of feminine sexual agency:
Viola: The cunning of her passion
Invites me in this churlish messenger.
None of my lord’s ring? Why, he sent her none!
Olivia later gives Cesario a small portrait of herself and gives Sebastian a pearl. These tokens, along with the jewel that Orsino asks Cesario to give to Olivia in Act 2, Scene 4, emphasize how love and courtship are intimately tied to class. Not only do Orsino and Olivia show their affection by giving people expensive gifts, they also use their servants to deliver them, further demonstrating their privilege. In Olivia's case, wealth and status have actually allowed her to take on a more dominant, masculine social role: instead of merely receiving gifts, she bestows them.
Letters also serve to underscore the politics of gender and class. In Act 3, Scene 4, Sir Andrew Aguecheek writes a letter to Cesario challenging him to a duel. Although Andrew views the duel as a means to prove his courage and masculinity, Sir Toby Belch notes that his nonsensical letter actually does just the opposite:
Toby: Therefore,
this letter, being so excellently ignorant, will breed
no terror in the youth. He will find it comes from a
clodpoll.
This scene pokes fun at the ridiculous pageantry that goes into masculine gender performance. When Toby resolves to deliver the challenge himself and, in doing so, present Sir Andrew as a far more formidable opponent than he really is, he illustrates the artificial, changeable nature of male identity.
Letters also serve to demonstrate the changeable nature of social class. Maria's ability to imitate her mistress's handwriting—an ability she uses to deceive Malvolio with a forged letter in Act 2, Scene 5—allows her to figuratively occupy a higher social rank. But the forged letter also ends up literally elevating her social status, since this act of cunning, according to Fabian's explanation in Act 5, Scene 1, is what inspires Toby to marry her:
Fabian: Maria writ
The letter at Sir Toby’s great importance,
In recompense whereof he hath married her.
Related Themes:
Act 5, scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Costumes:
Twelfth Night is a play filled with costumes and disguises. In addition to creating endless moments of humor and mistaken identity, clothing acts as a motif that represents the fluidity of human identity and emotion.
One important piece of clothing is Olivia's veil, which is symbolic of her grief over her brother's death. This veil, as demonstrated during Cesario's visit in Act 1, Scene 5, can easily be removed, which implies that this grief is performative. Just as Orsino is more in love with the idea of being in love, Olivia is more committed to the appearance of mourning than she is to the memory of her brother. Her grief is not deeply felt; she can take it off and put it back on whenever she chooses.
In Act 3, Scene 1, while confessing her love to Cesario, Olivia also calls attention to the material of her mourning clothes:
Olivia: A cypress, not a bosom,
Hides my heart.
Cypress is a type of lightweight, gauzy black fabric often used in mourning wear. With this metaphor, Olivia is both asserting that her heart is on her sleeve and connecting a symbol of grief to the concept of love. Ironically, since cypress fabric is semi-transparent, it doesn't actually "hide" much of anything. Olivia's heart (as well as her body) is on full display, which undermines the chaste image that her mourning clothes are meant to present. The identity of these clothes, like Olivia's emotions, are fluid—on one hand, they represent grief and concealment, while they represent desire and vulnerability on the other.
In Act 2, Scene 4, Feste uses a clothing metaphor to poke fun at Orsino's inconstant nature:
Fool: Now the melancholy god protect thee and the
tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy
mind is a very opal.
Since Orsino's mind is as changeable as the color of an opal, a stone that takes on different hues depending on where the light hits it, Feste quips that he ought to dress in color-changing clothes. While Orsino makes a show of being truly in love with Olivia, an opal doublet would make his appearance accurately reflect his nature.
In Act 3, Scene 1, Feste uses another clothing metaphor to point out the unreliability of language:
Fool: A sentence is
but a chev’ril glove to a good wit. How quickly the
wrong side may be turned outward!
Just as turning a glove inside out renders it useless, Feste reasons, playing around with words makes them meaningless. This metaphor may be a jab at Orsino, whose flowery love poetry reflects his lack of genuine feeling.
Finally, the clothes Viola wears when she is disguised as a man help to illustrate the fluid nature of her gender and of Orsino's sexuality. In Act 5, Scene 1, Orsino continues to address Viola as Cesario while she wears men's clothing:
Orsino: Cesario, come,
For so you shall be while you are a man.
But when in other habits you are seen,
Orsino’s mistress, and his fancy’s queen.
Orsino's language is precise: Viola is not merely dressed as a man, while she wears these clothes she is a man, and she will only become a woman when she dons her "woman's weeds." And although Orsino wishes to see her dressed as a woman, he falls in love with her while she is still Cesario, suggesting that his attraction to her is not wholly dependent on either her gender presentation or her gender identity.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Letters and Tokens:
Over the course of Twelfth Night, numerous characters exchange letters and tokens. As the play progresses, this motif comes to represent the mutable nature of gender and class.
In Act 1, Scene 5, Olivia claims that Cesario has left his ring behind and directs Malvolio to return it to him. Although the ring actually belongs to Olivia and is intended as a token of her affection, Malvolio regards it as a symbol of Orsino's unwanted advances. The gender politics of this item differ drastically depending on who is looking at it. For Malvolio, who himself desires Olivia, the ring represents masculine sexual aggression. But when Viola receives the ring in Act 2, Scene 2, she correctly interprets it as a symbol of feminine sexual agency:
Viola: The cunning of her passion
Invites me in this churlish messenger.
None of my lord’s ring? Why, he sent her none!
Olivia later gives Cesario a small portrait of herself and gives Sebastian a pearl. These tokens, along with the jewel that Orsino asks Cesario to give to Olivia in Act 2, Scene 4, emphasize how love and courtship are intimately tied to class. Not only do Orsino and Olivia show their affection by giving people expensive gifts, they also use their servants to deliver them, further demonstrating their privilege. In Olivia's case, wealth and status have actually allowed her to take on a more dominant, masculine social role: instead of merely receiving gifts, she bestows them.
Letters also serve to underscore the politics of gender and class. In Act 3, Scene 4, Sir Andrew Aguecheek writes a letter to Cesario challenging him to a duel. Although Andrew views the duel as a means to prove his courage and masculinity, Sir Toby Belch notes that his nonsensical letter actually does just the opposite:
Toby: Therefore,
this letter, being so excellently ignorant, will breed
no terror in the youth. He will find it comes from a
clodpoll.
This scene pokes fun at the ridiculous pageantry that goes into masculine gender performance. When Toby resolves to deliver the challenge himself and, in doing so, present Sir Andrew as a far more formidable opponent than he really is, he illustrates the artificial, changeable nature of male identity.
Letters also serve to demonstrate the changeable nature of social class. Maria's ability to imitate her mistress's handwriting—an ability she uses to deceive Malvolio with a forged letter in Act 2, Scene 5—allows her to figuratively occupy a higher social rank. But the forged letter also ends up literally elevating her social status, since this act of cunning, according to Fabian's explanation in Act 5, Scene 1, is what inspires Toby to marry her:
Fabian: Maria writ
The letter at Sir Toby’s great importance,
In recompense whereof he hath married her.
Related Themes:
