In the play “Twelfth Night,” Shakespeare explores and illustrates the emotion of love with special detail. According to “Webster’s New World Dictionary,” love is defined as “a strong affection or liking for someone.” Throughout the play Shakespeare examines four different types of love: true love, self love, friendship and sibling love. Love is a major theme in the play of “Twelfth Night.”
True Love: “Twelfth Night,” is a romantic comedy and romantic love is one of the plays main focuses. There are three romantic love stories in the play. Duke Orsino expresses his love for Countess Olivia. Curio makes use of a pun when he asks the love-sick duke if he wants to go hunting the “hart,” a male deer.(1,1,18) “Why, so do I, the noblest that I have,” replies Orsino, referring to his heart, the seat of passion. Viola disguised as a man, Cesario, serves the duke. She falls in love with Orsino. The duke asks Viola to go woo Olivia on behalf of him. In Act I Scene 5 at lines 220-229 Olivia compares Viola’s declaration of Orsino 's love to a sermon in church, based on a text in the bible. This is an unusual metaphor. What makes things more complicated is
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Moreover, sibling love is the fourth type of love shown in the play. Olivia expresses this love very clearly and is rather overstated as well because she wants to keep “A brother’s dead love, fresh “(1.1,31)” till seven years’ heat” (1,1,26 ). She is willing to mourn and bar herself from the rest of the world for seven years purely for a dead brother. Her grief is short, her vow is broken instantly upon meeting Cesario. Another pair of siblings in “Twelfth Night” are Sebastian and Viola who both think that the other is dead but “For saying so, there 's gold” clearly symbolises Viola having hope for Sebastian being alive. Sebastian wishes that “they would had so ended”(2,1,18). He loves his sister so much that he wants to die to spare himself the pain. The bond between siblings is so strong it causes people to go to new