When speaking about Cleopatra’s undying charm‚ Enobarbus stated‚ Age cannot wither her‚ nor custom stale Her infinite variety This is how many readers feel about the heroines in Shakespeare’s comedies. In both Twelfth Night and As You Like It the action revolves around strong female characters. Both Viola and Rosalind show immense strength‚ courage and power highly uncharacteristic of women in Elizabethan literature. In addition to their strength‚ the women also retain traditional feminine characteristics
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music alongside poetry used in Twelfth Night Critics call Twelfth Night one of William Shakespeare’s most poetic and musical plays. Shakespeare writes poetic lines for the major characters‚ Viola‚ Orsino‚ and Olivia‚ and gives the Fool‚ and other minor characters‚ songs to sing throughout the play. The particularly romantic lines of the play make it seem as if the characters are professional poets themselves. Shakespeare also uses the music and poetry in Twelfth Night to foreshadow what is going
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William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is a well-known Christmas play‚ it is considered as one of the most successful comedies. The play starts when Viola and her twin brother‚ Sebastian‚ survive a shipwreck. When they cannot find each other‚ each thinks the other may be dead. Then they move on to two separate ways‚ establishing two story lines that finally meet with each other after involving funny mistaken identities. The love bug in the comedy bites not only Olivia and Orsino‚ but also Sebastian
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In William Shakespeare’s a Twelfth Night a major subject is gender and sexual identity as a whole. Shakespeare takes on a vision that implies that gender to some degree can be subjective depending on how you present yourself rather than something you are due to the sexual parts you were given at birth. Viola early on in the story disguises herself as a male‚ named Cesario‚ and almost instantly Olivia falls in love with her. The overall alteration of Viola into Cesario is thought-provoking because
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Trevor Nunn’s adaptation of "Twelfth Night" is a masterpiece of insight and nuance. Instead of simply playing this gender-bending comedy of mistaken identity‚ the director highlights the dark undertones of the plot which show surprising depth. There are some alterations from the original text‚ but those who are less familiar with Shakespeare among the audience can appreciate the story being more easy to follow. For example‚ when Duke Orsino utters the famous opening line of the play‚ "If music be
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The Twelfth Night bears elements that define the disorder of society‚ and the inevitable chaos that follows from a seemingly innocent act. The abundant carnivalesque elements within the play contribute to the notion that nothing is as it seems‚ building on the age old notion that there is more than meets the eye. In a type of social commentary‚ Shakespeare illustrates the idea that order is nothing more than a façade in the way that it pertains to gender and social roles. With Queen Elizabeth I
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Twelfth Night Act I - Orsino is a guy that likes the idea of being in love. He is in love with Olivia but she is not interest in him. Curio is Orsino’s servant. Viola is in Illyria because of a shipwreck and was separated from her brother Sebastian. She decides to disguise herself as a man named Cesario. Viola‚ as Cesario‚ starts to work for Orsino. Sir Toby Belch is Olivia’s uncle who is a drunk and is rude. Maria is a smart and likes dry humor. Sir Andrew is a cocky man that thinks he posses
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such as Ben Jonson. Shakespeare wrote the critically acclaimed Twelfth Night in 1601 during the middle of his career. This play incorporates illusion‚ deception‚ disguises‚ madness and shows the extraordinary things that love with cause us to do. Shakespeare cleverly develops the theme of ‘love as a cause of suffering’ through language techniques‚ motifs such as Madness and disguise and through the idea of superficial love. Twelfth Night is classified as a romantic comedy as romantic love is a key
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Twelfth Night - Multi-Paragraph Essay #1 "Twelfth Night" is a story about a countess who is loved by various men as she tries to cope with her brother’s death. The story focusses especially on falling love and how it causes one’s character to change. Shakespeare’s "Twelfth Night" shows‚ especially through Olivia and Malvolio‚ how different people react to being in love and how their behavior and relationships change. Olivia‚ the beautiful and elegant countess‚ changes from a cunning and smart women
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stories; a popular and recurring one being love. It can be paired with different and sometimes opposite themes to add excitement‚ even making the story have unexpected plot twists. Focusing on two plays; Sophocles’ Antigone and William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night‚ the theme of love will be depicted differently. Love‚ a universal subject in many plays‚ can be incorporated as various forms and be paired with themes such as tragedy‚ and humor. Love‚ when combined with tragedy‚ creates unpredictable consequences
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