Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare, written around 1601, first recorded in performance in 1602, and first published in 1623. It is a comedy of mistaken identity.

After a shipwreck separates Viola from her twin brother Sebastian, she disguises herself as Cesario and enters the service of Duke Orsino. Viola loves Orsino, Orsino pursues Olivia, and Olivia falls for Cesario, forming a three-sided pattern of desire.

Sebastian's arrival turns resemblance into escalating confusion. In Olivia's household, Maria, Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and Feste forge a letter to deceive the severe Malvolio, making festivity sharpened by cruelty the play's darker counterplot.

Disguise gives Viola freedom while exposing how love depends on names, clothes, fantasy, and self-presentation. Recognition can restore identities and rearrange couples, but Feste's songs preserve the melancholy beneath love unsettled by performance.

"ORSINO
If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken and so die.
That strain again, it had a dying fall;
O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour. Enough; no more;
’Tis not so sweet now as it was before."