Love Defined By Shakespeare

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What is love? According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, the most recent definition of love is a “strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties” (Online). About four hundred years ago, William Shakespeare provided his readers with his very own definition of love through his wonderful comedy, Twelfth Night; Or What You Will. The unique relationships that the characters develop in this play rely heavily on “the conflict between reason and emotion in matters of love” (Cahn 675). Different styles of love illustrated in Twelfth Night; Or What You Will are built between the relationships of the characters involved in the love triangle: Orsino, Olivia, and Viola.
In consideration of his love for Olivia, Orsino is not in love “so much with a woman [as he is] with his own idea of love” (Jenkins 77). This idea being his infatuation with himself paralleled with his attraction to Olivia’s exaggeration of mourning her brother’s death (Cahn 666). In Twelfth Night; Or What You Will, he imagines what will become of this love after receiving word from Valentine that Olivia will continue to lament her brother’s death for seven years. Orsino asks, “How will she love when the rich golden shaft Hath killed the flock of all affections else…and filled Her sweet perfections with one self king!” (I. i. 34-38). His anguished love for Olivia differs from his love for Viola, which grows while disguised as a man, Cesario. “Whether he is aware or not, Orsino is falling in love with the young man in front of him (Cahn 668). After the revelation of Sebastian’s marriage to Olivia, Orsino says:
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. (V. i. 380-383). Now that he realizes that Cesario is really a woman, he can express his love for her freely. Orsino’s love for Olivia was obsessive and...