Literature

‘Twelfth Night’: Learning to Discern Between Appearance and Reality

‘Twelfth Night’: Learning to Discern Between Appearance and Reality
A “Scene from 'Twelfth Night' ('Malvolio and the Countess'),” 1840, by Daniel Maclise. National Gallery, London. Public Domain
Walker Larson
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Duke Orsino begins Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night, or What You Will” with the famous lines, “If music be the food of love, play on; / Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, / The appetite may sicken, and so die.” The poetry is lovely. But what is he really asking for?

Orsino desires an “excess” of “love-food” so that his taste will sicken and die. He wants to be overloaded with lovesickness, to wallow in his forlorn feelings of melancholy. He enjoys the sadness as he loafs about his palace, listening to sad songs and composing love poems, pining for a woman he really knows little about. Orsino reveals, from the very beginning of the play, that he’s in love with being in love.

Walker Larson
Walker Larson
Author
Before becoming a freelance journalist and culture writer, Walker Larson taught literature and history at a private academy in Wisconsin, where he resides with his wife and daughter. He holds a master’s in English literature and language, and his writing has appeared in The Hemingway Review, Intellectual Takeout, and his Substack, The Hazelnut. He is also the author of two novels, “Hologram” and “Song of Spheres.”