“‘Twelfth Night’ is a play about the pain of loving another person.”
In Shakespeare’s comedy ‘Twelfth Night’, love can be presented as painful with “sweet pangs”, as
when in love with someone, characters such as Olivia and Antonio are at their most vulnerable,
and therefore can be easily hurt. However, it can also be seen that Shakespeare depicts loving
another person as not solely painful, but also as an exciting and powerful emotion too, that can
even liberate characters into discovering their true selves and true desires, which can be seen
through the homoerotic relationships of Olivia and Viola/ Cesario, and Antonio and Sebastian.
When Olivia ‘falls in love’ with Cesario, this represents a signi cant shift in her character, because
Olivia being in love exposes her vulnerability, making it easier for her to get hurt. In fact, she
recognises this when she questions how “even so quickly may one catch the plague”, suggesting
she has been taken over or even transformed by love like a “plague”, where she even accepts
putting her status and “honour at the stake”, exposing herself for her love for Cesario. As a result,
this love becomes fertile ground for pain to enter, suggesting “the pain of loving another person”
is bound to occur in relationships, because characters in love expose themselves entirely to the
other person, even at the risk of pain of reducing status or honour in Olivia’s case. This exposure
is because, as Eagleton describes, “characters in love are simultaneously at their most “real” and
“unreal””, with Olivia’s love for Cesario causing her to literally take o her veil to reveal her “real”
face, and through a queer lens, explore her “real” homosexual desires for the feminine Cesario.
While it can be seen that Olivia is also at her most “unreal” by trying to impress/ woo Cesario and
therefore in some sense losing her agency, it can also be argued that characters are only “real”
when in love, because in exposing characters, love often removes deception. Olivia not only
removes her veil, but also is able to perhaps see Cesario’s actual femininity, which makes her
attracted to her. As a result, eventually when Olivia is unable to marry Viola even after exposing
how she “love[s] [Viola] so that maugre all thy pride”, this unsatisfactory ending is a direct
portrayal of “the pain of loving another person”. In Luscombe’s 2017 Royal Shakespeare
Company production, Olivia’s pain in her unsatisfactory ending can be seen as against the
background of a dimly-lit, melancholy atmosphere; she reaches out to Viola rather than Sebastian,
during the ‘love-square’, signifying the pain that she feels about their relationship. Therefore, it
can be seen that due to exposing herself entirely for Cesario, Viola’s rejection and her
unsatisfactory ending are particularly painful.
On the other hand, it is also evident that Shakespeare not only depicts the painful side of love but
also the power of love, where in Olivia’s case, it could be seen that her love for Cesario liberates
her. When she actively chooses to “draw the curtain to show [Cesario] the picture”, this can be
interpreted as Olivia transforming from a grieving daughter into a more outgoing and liberated
state, triggered by Cesario. Love liberating Olivia can be especially inferred in the 2017 RSC
production, where after discovering her desire for Cesario, she begins wearing more revealing and
coloured clothing, from black, funeral-like gowns to a deep purple dress revealing her chest and
arms more. However, through a queer lens, this love that liberates Olivia could be, in particular,
her discovery of homosexual love through Cesario. In the 2017 RSC production, she also chooses
to attempt to kiss Cesario in Act 3 Scene 1, and though Cesario rejects her, this clearly signi es
the excitement of her homosexual desires and how love is also exhilarating. In fact, McDonald
reinforces this idea of liberation, describing how “comedy moves from confusion to order, from
ignorance to understanding, from law to liberty”, suggesting how Olivia’s orderly and restrained
character (“law”) ended in “liberty”. As a result, this suggests that love is not only painful but also
exciting and joyous, with the potential to change and liberate people.
In a similar way, Antonio and Sebastian’s relationship also shows the painful nature of love,
because in some way their love (speci cally Antonio’s love) is unattainable because it does not
conform to the heteronormative generic conclusion via marriage. In fact, at the end Antonio is not
given a conclusion at all when Sebastian marries Olivia and Antonio realises how Sebastian has
“made division of [him]self”. During the ‘love square’ in the 2017 RSC production, Antonio walks
away, signifying his lack of conclusion, and in the 2017 National Theatre production the revolve
stage shows Antonio packing his bags to go elsewhere, because he cannot nd how he could t
in with Illyria and ‘Twelfth Night’s’ heteronormative ending. Emma Smith highlights how Antonio
“is the desire that cannot be contained in the marital conclusions typical of the romantic comedy”
because his love is not the “typical” sort of a “romantic comedy”. However, it can also be seen
that rather than Antonio’s homosexual love unable to be “contained”, his desire is rather unable to
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In Shakespeare’s comedy ‘Twelfth Night’, love can be presented as painful with “sweet pangs”, as
when in love with someone, characters such as Olivia and Antonio are at their most vulnerable,
and therefore can be easily hurt. However, it can also be seen that Shakespeare depicts loving
another person as not solely painful, but also as an exciting and powerful emotion too, that can
even liberate characters into discovering their true selves and true desires, which can be seen
through the homoerotic relationships of Olivia and Viola/ Cesario, and Antonio and Sebastian.
When Olivia ‘falls in love’ with Cesario, this represents a signi cant shift in her character, because
Olivia being in love exposes her vulnerability, making it easier for her to get hurt. In fact, she
recognises this when she questions how “even so quickly may one catch the plague”, suggesting
she has been taken over or even transformed by love like a “plague”, where she even accepts
putting her status and “honour at the stake”, exposing herself for her love for Cesario. As a result,
this love becomes fertile ground for pain to enter, suggesting “the pain of loving another person”
is bound to occur in relationships, because characters in love expose themselves entirely to the
other person, even at the risk of pain of reducing status or honour in Olivia’s case. This exposure
is because, as Eagleton describes, “characters in love are simultaneously at their most “real” and
“unreal””, with Olivia’s love for Cesario causing her to literally take o her veil to reveal her “real”
face, and through a queer lens, explore her “real” homosexual desires for the feminine Cesario.
While it can be seen that Olivia is also at her most “unreal” by trying to impress/ woo Cesario and
therefore in some sense losing her agency, it can also be argued that characters are only “real”
when in love, because in exposing characters, love often removes deception. Olivia not only
removes her veil, but also is able to perhaps see Cesario’s actual femininity, which makes her
attracted to her. As a result, eventually when Olivia is unable to marry Viola even after exposing
how she “love[s] [Viola] so that maugre all thy pride”, this unsatisfactory ending is a direct
portrayal of “the pain of loving another person”. In Luscombe’s 2017 Royal Shakespeare
Company production, Olivia’s pain in her unsatisfactory ending can be seen as against the
background of a dimly-lit, melancholy atmosphere; she reaches out to Viola rather than Sebastian,
during the ‘love-square’, signifying the pain that she feels about their relationship. Therefore, it
can be seen that due to exposing herself entirely for Cesario, Viola’s rejection and her
unsatisfactory ending are particularly painful.
On the other hand, it is also evident that Shakespeare not only depicts the painful side of love but
also the power of love, where in Olivia’s case, it could be seen that her love for Cesario liberates
her. When she actively chooses to “draw the curtain to show [Cesario] the picture”, this can be
interpreted as Olivia transforming from a grieving daughter into a more outgoing and liberated
state, triggered by Cesario. Love liberating Olivia can be especially inferred in the 2017 RSC
production, where after discovering her desire for Cesario, she begins wearing more revealing and
coloured clothing, from black, funeral-like gowns to a deep purple dress revealing her chest and
arms more. However, through a queer lens, this love that liberates Olivia could be, in particular,
her discovery of homosexual love through Cesario. In the 2017 RSC production, she also chooses
to attempt to kiss Cesario in Act 3 Scene 1, and though Cesario rejects her, this clearly signi es
the excitement of her homosexual desires and how love is also exhilarating. In fact, McDonald
reinforces this idea of liberation, describing how “comedy moves from confusion to order, from
ignorance to understanding, from law to liberty”, suggesting how Olivia’s orderly and restrained
character (“law”) ended in “liberty”. As a result, this suggests that love is not only painful but also
exciting and joyous, with the potential to change and liberate people.
In a similar way, Antonio and Sebastian’s relationship also shows the painful nature of love,
because in some way their love (speci cally Antonio’s love) is unattainable because it does not
conform to the heteronormative generic conclusion via marriage. In fact, at the end Antonio is not
given a conclusion at all when Sebastian marries Olivia and Antonio realises how Sebastian has
“made division of [him]self”. During the ‘love square’ in the 2017 RSC production, Antonio walks
away, signifying his lack of conclusion, and in the 2017 National Theatre production the revolve
stage shows Antonio packing his bags to go elsewhere, because he cannot nd how he could t
in with Illyria and ‘Twelfth Night’s’ heteronormative ending. Emma Smith highlights how Antonio
“is the desire that cannot be contained in the marital conclusions typical of the romantic comedy”
because his love is not the “typical” sort of a “romantic comedy”. However, it can also be seen
that rather than Antonio’s homosexual love unable to be “contained”, his desire is rather unable to
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