Essay on Love and Gender in Twelfth Night -- Twelfth Night essays

Love and Gender in Twelfth Night Shakespeares Twelfth Night examines patterns of love and courtship through a twisty of gender roles. In Act 3, scene 1, Olivia displays the confusion created for both characters and audience as she takes on the traditionally male role of wooer in an onset to win the disguised Viola, or Cesario. Olivia praises Cesarios beauty and then addresses him with the belief that his scorn (3.1.134) only reveals his hidden love. However, Olivias mistaken interpretation of Cesarios manner is only the surface chore presented by her speech. The reality of Cesarios gender, the active role Olivia takes in pursuing him/her, and the duality of word meanings in this passage threaten to turn the traditional patriarchal judgment of courtship upside down, or as Olivia says turn night to noon (139). Perhaps the biggest upset to the traditional structure is the possibility that Olivia may be in love with a woman. Shakespeare allows his audience to excuse this by havin g Olivia be unaware that Cesario is actually female. Yet, Olivias attraction seems to stem exactly from the more feminine characteristics like Cesarios stunning scorn and angry lip (136-137). Olivias words allow an audience, particularly a modern one, to perhaps read her as suspecting or even knowing that Cesario is female, insofar choosing to love him/her anyway. Olivias description of Cesarios beauty, both here and upon their first encounter, praises typically feminine qualities, but curiously doesnt question Cesarios gender. The comparison of love to guilt tempts the readers mind to marvel if Olivia is guilty about her love for such female attributes. Olivias oath on maidenhood ... ...ess Ltd, 1972. 222-43. Burton, Robert. The Anatomy of Melancholy. Ed. Floyd Dell, New York Tudor Publishing Company, 1927. David, R. W., ed. The Arden Shakespeare Loves Labours Lost. capital of the United Kingdom Methuen, 1951. Dusinberre, Juliet. Shakespeare and the Nature of Women. London Ma cmillan Press Ltd, 1975. Erasmus, Desiderius. In Praise of Folly. Trans. Hoyt Hopewell Hudson, Princeton, New Jersey Princeton University Press, 1970. Hotson, Leslie. Shakespeares Motley. New York Oxford University Press, 1952. Potter, Lois. Twelfth Night Text & Performance. London Macmillan, 1985. Shakespeare, William. The Norton Shakespeare. Edited Stephen Greenblatt et al. New York W. W. Norton & Company, 1997. Zijderveld, Anton J. Reality in a Looking-Glass Rationality through an Analysis of Traditional Folly. London Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982.