Twelfth Night: Key Quotations (OCR A Level English Literature)

Quotations

The best way to revise quotations is to group them by character, or theme. Below you will find definitions and analysis of the best quotations, arranged by the following themes:

• Love and desire

• Excess

• Appearance and reality

• Gender and sexuality

Love and desire

Shakespearean comedies, such as Twelfth Night, revolve around thwarted desire, romantic dilemmas, confusions and love triangles. Comedies, however, always resolve these problems by the end, almost always ending with a wedding or marriage. In fact, Twelfth Night ends with three marriages. Shakespearean comedies often expose hypocrisies within the sphere of romance, particularly ridiculing insincere and fickle love. In many of his plays, though, Shakespeare also explores the powerful influence of desire on human beings from all walks of life regardless of status or gender. Twelfth Night, too, suggests love does not discriminate.  

Paired quotations:

“If music be the food of love, play on,/Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting,/The appetite may sicken, and so die” Orsino, Twelfth Night, Act I, Scene I

“Enough; no more: Tis not so sweet now as it was before”  Orsino, Twelfth Night, Act I, Scene I

Meaning and context

• Audiences are introduced to the theme of love in a soliloquy delivered by the lovesick Orsino, Duke of Illyria, a nobleman sickened with desire and unrequited love for the Lady Olivia

• The duke commands his musicians to play so much music it will satisfy the ‘hunger’ he feels for Olivia

• However, Orsino quickly asks the musicians to stop playing as it has stopped working 

Analysis

• One of the most famous lines of Twelfth Night, the metaphor {Error #829843: Missing popover `RN4o781KQR3LkGP`} conveys the melancholic emotions of unrequited love, which the duke believes will be satisfied by music:

  • Associations between music and the expression of thwarted love introduce the theme of madness and excess as a consequence of desire

• Within the same soliloquy, Orsino commands that the musicians stop

• The contrasting instructions to the musicians portray Orsino as both a man with status and power as well as a man who does not know his own mind

• Shakespeare conveys ideas about fickle desire and love for the idea of love through Orsino’s character 

“Make me a willow cabin at your gate/And call upon my soul within the house” Viola, Twelfth Night, Act I, Scene V

Meaning and context

• In this scene Viola, in her disguise as Cesario, is sent by Orsino to carry his messages of love to Olivia 

• Viola (disguised as Cesario) delivers a speech to Olivia on Orsino’s behalf. However, her passionate words initiate Olivia’s desire for Cesario instead

• Here, Viola describes the determination Orsino would show if Olivia loved him in return:

  • He would stay outside Olivia’s gate night and day, proclaiming love until Olivia relented

• Although the words are spoken on behalf of Orsino and proclaim the depth of his love for Olivia, the audience knows that Viola is really speaking about her love for Orsino

Analysis

• Viola as Cesario speaks openly and passionately about love:

  • The metaphor is sophisticated and shows Viola’s wisdom and sincerity

• The line is ironic because the audience has already seen how Orsino fights for his love: he stays at home and pines to music

• Dramatic irony increases the tension of the scene as the audience is aware Viola is speaking from the heart about her longing for Orsino:

  • The speech begins to raise questions about genuine love

• Perspective shifts from third-person “he” to first-person “me” signal the coming confusions within the love triangle:

  • Orsino is in love with Olivia, who is fast falling in love with Cesario, who in turn is in love with Orsino

• Shakespeare presents, in this scene, the way in which love and desire is complicated by disguise and deception:

  • Viola, disguised as a man, illustrates here her suffering as a result of hiding her real identity, unable to voice her love for Orsino

  • In this way the play explores societal attitudes to sexuality

• The intensity of this speech highlights the way love is thwarted by societal norms regarding sexuality:

  • In Elizabethan society, homosexuality was considered a sin as it was said to oppose Christian values:

    • When Olivia falls in love with a woman while believing her to be a man, Shakespeare raises questions about the nature of love 

Paired quotations 

“What is love? Tis not hereafter;/Present mirth hath present laughter” Feste, Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene III

“Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,/More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn” Orsino, Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene IV

Meaning and context

• Feste sings this song in a light-hearted drinking scene with Sir Toby and Sir Andrew:

  • The tradition of Twelfth Night as a time for revelry as well as reflection are portrayed in this scene

• Feste suggests here that love is fleeting and easily changeable

• Orsino, similarly, discusses the way feelings of love and desire are unpredictable 

Analysis

• Feste, the fool, explores the nature of love through song, in the role of omniscient observer of the courtly goings-on:

  • This allows him to narrate some of Shakespeare’s ideas about love without making the play too melodramatic

• Feste asks a rhetorical question to introduce questions about the nature of love

• The use of adverbials of time, such as “hereafter” and “present”, convey love as time-dependant, suggesting love and happiness can only exist in the present moment

• Orsino, too, conveys his attitude to love with a list of adjectives describing romantic notions as weak and unstable

“She sat like patience on a monument,/Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?” Viola as Cesario, Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene V

Meaning and context

• Here, Viola, disguised as Cesario, describes love to Orsino

• The audience is aware she is discussing her own unspoken desire for Orsino himself, but disguised as a man she is unable to vocalise it

• Viola describes love as patient and as strong and constant as a monument

• Yet, she also accepts that unspoken love brings grief and pain

Analysis

• Here, Viola’s disguise brings irony to her words and raises questions about deception and love

• In a simile, she compares love to a stable and steadfast building, an image Shakespeare often uses to describe pure and genuine love

• Viola’s rich personification of love as patient and resilient in the face of challenge suggests to the audience that her feelings for Orsino are strong

• Nevertheless, her rhetorical question highlights the way she believes love and pain to be inextricably linked

Excess

Twelfth Night conveys ideas about excessive emotions. Whether it is excessive grief, hyperbolic proclamations of love or hallucinations and sickness derived from intense desire, Shakespeare’s play comments on how madness can be a consequence of excessive melodrama. In much of Shakespeare’s writing he ridicules courtly dramatics and extols the virtues of humble partnerships which are not centred around societal norms. Typically, the characters in Twelfth Night illustrate insincere dramatisations which are the result of self-love or delusions. 

Paired quotations:

“My masters are you mad? Or what are you? Have you/no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like/tinkers at this time of night?”  Malvolio, Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene III  

“Good Sir Topas,/ do not think I am mad. They have laid me here/in hideous darkness” Malvolio, Twelfth Night, Act IV, Scene II 

Meaning and context

• Malvolio asks Sir Toby and Sir Andrew if they are mad because they are drunk and acting like ‘commoners’ late at night

• His question of their honesty is ironic as later, in Act IV, Sir Toby and the other household staff deceive Malvolio

• In Act IV, Scene II, Malvolio has been declared mad by Olivia for his foolish and uncharacteristic dance

• He has been locked in a dark chamber and convinced he has lost his mind

Analysis

• Malvolio’s indignant rhetorical questions portray his attitude to madness:

  • In a list, he suggests madness is manifested in a lack of self-control and decorum

  • The audience will find it humorous that Malvolio defines madness as dishonesty because he himself is dishonest in his intentions with Olivia 

  • Here, Shakespeare highlights hypocrisies as a result of excess vanity

• Shakespeare pokes fun at Malvolio’s definition of madness when, later, Malvolio himself loses all sense of self-control and decorum when he dances for Olivia

• The theme of madness is symbolised with darkness:

  • Malvolio’s change of dress from black to yellow leads to his imprisonment 

  • He describes the darkness as “hideous”:

    • This could connect ideas of madness with lack of clarity or hidden ‘vision’ as a result of deluded and excessive desire

“I am as mad as he,/If sad and merry madness equal be” Olivia, Twelfth Night, Act III, Scene IV

Meaning and context

• Olivia speaks this line after declaring Malvolio mad and having him locked up

• She refers to a different kind of madness, her intense and sudden desire for Cesario

• Olivia links sadness, happiness and madness, suggesting confused and chaotic romantic feelings

Analysis

• Olivia’s simile, comparing her own madness to Malvolio’s, once again highlights madness associated with excess of any kind:

  • Malvolio’s madness comes as a result of his gullible and deluded self-love (which Elizabethans associated with a form of melancholic narcissism)

  • Olivia’s madness comes from her unstable feelings for Cesario

• The irony of her flippant comparison is not lost on an audience who is aware she has fallen in love with a woman and is deluded herself

“Why, this is very midsummer madness” Olivia, Twelfth Night, Act III, Scene IV

Meaning and context

• Here, Olivia, having just witnessed Malvolio’s uncharacteristic and foolish performance, expresses her surprise 

• She blames Malvolio’s strange behaviour on the fact it is midsummer:

  • In the English literary language there is an implicit association between heat and madness:

    • There are plenty of examples of metaphor which symbolise associations between heat and unpredictable moods

  • There is also a connection, here, to rabid dogs as heat could bring on rabies

Analysis

• As the play opened on Twelfth Night, this reference could be ironic:

  • It could refer to the madness of the celebratory festival

  • It could also refer to the madness of love

• Olivia’s remark suggests her surprise:

  • The modifying adverb “very” suggests Olivia’s shock at Malvolio’s behaviour

  • His change from puritanical to colourful and cheerful is drastic

• The alliteration of “midsummer madness” highlights Olivia’s shock, which is particularly funny to an audience who is complicit in the joke

• The comedic scene is hyperbolic in nature, a typical convention of comedy and parody

Paired quotations:

“The element itself till seven years’ heat/Shall not behold her face at ample view,/But like a cloistress she will veiled walk” Valentine, Twelfth Night, Act I, Scene I

“The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother’s soul being in heaven” Feste, Twelfth Night, Act I, Scene V

Meaning and context

• Valentine introduces Olivia in the first act, explaining that she is mourning the deaths of her father and brother for seven years

• Valentine reports that she will hide from sight as if she were a nun

• The fool, Feste, later tells Olivia she is foolish to mourn her brother’s death and should be pleased he is in heaven and not in hell

Analysis

• Again, the reference to heat and excess is made:

  • Here, it describes Olivia’s long period of mourning

• Valentine contrasts the heat with a reference to a veil, suggesting she is hiding away

• His simile, comparing her to a nun, hints at the extreme actions Olivia takes in her grief

• The fool, however, mocks her excessive grieving by tricking her with wordplay:

  • While he is the fool in the court, he tells Olivia she is the fool

  • He mocks her religious grieving by explaining she should be happy her brother is in heaven

Appearance and reality

Twelfth Night’s plot revolves around disguise and deception. Shakespeare’s comedies often create confusing situations based on what is real and what is not, with comedic effect. The use of dramatic irony allows audiences to laugh at the characters as they respond foolishly, ignorant of the truth. Viola’s disguise as a man is the catalyst for the play’s messages about the hypocrisies of appearance. 

Paired quotations:

“Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness,/Wherein the pregnant enemy does much” Viola, Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene II

“I am not what I am” Viola, Twelfth Night, Act III, Scene I

Meaning and context

• When Viola, dressed as Cesario, learns that Olivia has fallen in love with her she realises the consequences of her deception:

  • She describes disguise as wicked and contributing to evil

• Later, Cesario tries to tell Olivia why she cannot return her love:

  • The audience is aware that Cesario, Viola in disguise, is speaking the truth

Analysis

• Viola directly addresses “Disguise”, personifying it to bring a serious tone to the metaphor:

  • She tells it she can clearly see that it leads to evil

• Her use of the word “enemy” suggests she is fully aware of how damaging and dangerous deception can be

• The irony of Viola’s later explanation to Olivia that she is not who she says she is comes from the combination of her honesty as well as the concealment in her words

• The declarative sentence tells Olivia the truth, while audiences are amused as they know Viola is deceiving Olivia nonetheless

“Well, I’ll put it on and I will dissemble myself in’t;/and I would I were the first that ever dissembled in such a gown” Feste, Twelfth Night, Act IV, Scene II

Meaning and context

• Feste, the fool, dresses up as a priest to trick Malvolio into confessing his madness:

  • He plans to ‘exorcise’ the demons from Malvolio

• In this line, Feste jokes about how many other people pretend (“dissemble”) when they wear a priest’s gown

 Analysis

• Shakespeare portrays the ease at which characters are duped and manipulated by costume

• Not only does Viola outwit the other characters (although Feste alludes to not being convinced) but Feste involves himself in disguise as well:

  • This is typical of the antics of Twelfth Night, traditionally a time for disguises and masks

• Shakespeare’s dig at religion brings humour to the line as Feste hints that he may not be the only ‘pretender’ wearing a priest’s gown

Gender and sexuality

Twelfth Night raises a number of questions regarding the nature of gender and sexual identity. Essentially, it is Viola’s cross-dressing which creates the comedy, as characters are tricked and confused by her ambiguous gender. Shakespeare comments on gender fluidity through characterisations of effeminate men and by illustrating the ease at which characters are deceived by appearance and actions, suggesting that the idea of gender is societal, rather than biological. The play also explores the fluidity of sexuality as Shakespeare exposes hypocrisies within social norms.

Paired quotations:

“Thy small pipe/Is as the maiden's organ, shrill and sound,/And all is semblative a woman's part” Orsino, Twelfth Night, Act I, Scene IV 

“He is very well-favoured and he speaks very shrewishly; one would think his mother’s milk were scarce out of him” Malvolio, Twelfth Night, Act I, Scene V

Meaning and context

• When Orsino says this to Viola (disguised as Cesario), he alludes to Viola’s naturally feminine voice

• Although he mentions this, Orsino does not doubt his new page-boy and considers him simply effeminate

• Malvolio’s description of Cesario (Viola) to Olivia confirms this:

  • The description of his voice as “shrewish” alludes to a derogatory term comparing women to shrews because of their high-pitched nagging

  • Malvolio, however, is tricked by the disguise and believes this to be because Cesario is young

Analysis

• It is made clear that the characters are convinced by Viola’s disguise because they perceive her as an effeminate young man

• This highlights the significance of appearance within gender constructs:

  • In particular, because the part of Viola would have been played by a man in Shakespeare’s theatres 

• The confusing nature of Viola’s gender is ironic in nature:

  • The comedic effect of a man playing a female character who is disguised as a man, yet is described as woman-like, conveys Shakespeare’s ideas on the fluidity of gender

• It has been suggested that Shakespeare hints at Orsino’s homesexual attraction to Cesario here

• At the end of the play, Orsino proposes to Viola once she is in “woman’s weeds”  

Paired quotations:

“My father had a daughter loved a man,/As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman” Viola as Cesario, Twelfth NIght, Act II, Scene IV

“I am all the daughters of my father's house,/And all the brothers too: and yet I know not.” Viola as Cesario, Twelfth Night, Act II Scene IV

Meaning and context

• Here, Viola, disguised as Cesario, speaks passionately about her love for Orsino

• However, she hides the real meaning in her words as she is unable to confess her love for him while she is dressed as a man

• In these lines, Viola tells Orsino a story about an imaginary daughter, a sister who does not exist

• Orsino, unaware Viola is referring to herself, thinks her meaning is metaphorical: that she (he) is her father’s only surviving child 

Analysis

• The scene is dramatic and tense:

  • Viola’s desperation to tell the truth about her real gender is presented in an emotive and metaphorical speech

  • Shakespeare illustrates the suffering Viola experiences as she hides her real identity 

• Viola’s grief for her presumed-dead brother, Sebastian, coupled with her unspoken love for Orsino, is veiled behind clever double-meanings

• Shakespeare purposely confuses the idea of gender when Viola adds “as it might be, perhaps, were I a woman”:

  • This is ironic as the audience knows her true identity 

• Viola’s sophisticated explanation of gender is typical of Shakespeare’s female characters: 

  • He often creates female characters who speak wisely and sensibly about discrimination or love

• Her deliberate and rhetorical statement that she is all the daughters and all the sons of her father’s house alludes to gender as ‘all one and the same’