What is shakespeare saying about extremes of behavior in the play twelfth night - Essay Example

Twelfth Night William Shakespeare is today recognized as perhaps the most seminal in the English language. Shakespeare’s canon of writing includes the gamut of generic conventions, with tragedies, comedies, and histories. While the Shakespearean tragedies, including ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Macbeth’, have garnered the most critical attention, Shakespeare’s exploration of the human condition is also evident in many of his comedies. One such poignant comedy is ‘Twelfth Night.’ Through this work Shakespeare explores the extremes of human behavior.

This essay examines this text in regards to Shakespeare’s commentary on these behavioral extremes. One of the most overarching themes in Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’ is the notion that human behavior is greatly subject to imagination and whim. The opening monologue of the play finds Orsino waxing poetic on the nature of love. He states, “So full of shapes is fancy/ That it alone is high fantastical” (I.i.1–15). In this statement ‘fancy’ refers to love and ‘high fantastical’ to the imagination.

In these regards, through Orsino, Shakespeare is nothing that love is to a great degree the victim of human whim and subjectivity. Indeed, one of the play’s greatest ironies is that the characters inadvertently fall in love with members of the same sex. At the end of the play, Orsino says to Viola, “Boy, thou hast said to me a/ thousand times/ Thou never shouldst love woman like to me (V.i.260–262).” Despite knowing Viola is a woman, he continues referring to her as ‘boy’. This is Shakespeare’s way of commenting on the ‘high fantastical’ nature of human behavior.

Shakespeare elaborates his comments on human behavior through the main characters. Orsino, Olivia, Viola, and Sebastian engage in a complex array of romantic interactions bordering on absurd. A cursory character, Malvolio, is also embroiled in this thematic approach. Discovering what he believes to be a letter wherein Olivia expresses her love for him, he states, “This is open/ I will be proud, I will read politic authors, I will baffle Sir Toby, I will wash off/ gross acquaintance, I will be point-device the very man” (II.v.140–142).

In this instance, Malvolio is speaking about all the things he will do as a means of convincing Olivia to marry him. He later goes as far as dressing in ridiculous clothing, including yellow stockings, because others tell him this will work to win her love. Much like Shakespeare’s exploration the absurdities of love and gender, Malvolio’s belief that through performing these ridiculous tasks he will be able to win Olivia’s heart is a similar comment on the nature of the imagination and love.

In conclusion, this essay has examined the ‘Twelfth Night’ in terms of the comments Shakespeare is making on the extremes of human behavior. In this context of understanding, the essay argues that through this text Shakespeare is commenting on the connection between human whim and love. This connection is developed through the intense romantic connections and absurd beliefs the characters subjectively develop about people with whom they truly know very little about. ReferencesShakespeare, William.

"Twelfth Night." etext. N.p., 2010. Web. 17 Dec 2011. .