Twelfth Night- Distorted Love

In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, a number of characters have distorted visions of what love, and especially romantic love are. Duke Orsino begins the plat as a self-loving, egotistical man deluded by his own amorous fancies. Olivia, the woman he believes he is in love with, is a proud mistress who has voluntarily cloistered herself for seven years to mourn her brother’s death as a mode for hiding her own insecurities. Viola is Orsino’…

…him: Olivia: Where lies your text? Viola: To answer by method, in the first of [Orsino’s] heart. Olivia: O, I have read it! It is heresy. Have you no more to say? Olivia's blind stubborness, in comparison to her later blind love for Cesario, appears both hypocritical and ironic. Further examples of such distorted love continue to appear throughout the play, giving way to Shakespeare's main theme: criticizing the English style of "courtly love."