Twelfth Night – Act 2

‘Give me some music. – Now, good morrow, friends’ Orsino (Act 2 Scene 4)- spondee then reversion to iambic pattern of stress mirror Orsino being idealistic at start of play
‘In the sweet pangs of it remember me’ Orsino (Act 2 Scene 4)- metaphor of ‘sweet pangs’ involves plosive sound to show he is struck by love
‘It gives a very echo to the seat/Where love is throned’ Viola (Act 2 Scene 4)- metaphor of ‘echo’ both compliments Orsino but also implies his love is empty and superficial
‘For women are as roses…/Being once displayed, doth fall that very hour’ Orsino (Act 2 Scene 4)- metaphor of ‘roses’ is an image of femininity and suggests women are fickle in love.
‘The spinsters and knitters in the sun’ Orsino (Act 2 Scene 4)- Orsino admires these typically feminine roles in women
‘I am slain by a fair cruel maid’ Feste (Act 2 Scene 4) – oxymoron highlights how Orsino enjoys revelling in pain
‘…for thy mind is a very opal’ Feste (Act 2 Scene 4)- metaphor implies both Orsino’s innate qualities and criticises him for being fickle
‘Tell her my love, more noble than the world’ Orsino (Act 2 Scene 4)- believes courtly love will prevail – comic
‘I hold as giddily as fortune’ Orsino (Act 2 Scene 4)- simile implies Orzino considers possessions when loving Olivia, despite pretending not to
‘They lack retention.’ Orsino (Act 2 Scene 4)- suggests women have no consistency in love
‘But mine is all as hungry as the sea’ Orsino (Act 2 Scene 4)- simile suggests male love has an unbridled force. It’s an exagerrative and therefore funny
‘She sat like patience on a monument’ Viola (Act 2 Scene 4)- speaks in third person about herself – irony.- simile implies she knows she cannot admit love for Orsino as a man
‘…give her this jewel’ Orsino (Act 2 Scene 4)- despite what Viola has taught him, Orsino still believes in power of material persuasion. His love isn’t genuine.
‘She is drowned already, sir, with salt water, though I seem to drown her remembrance again with more’ Sebastian (Act 2 Scene 1)- semantic field of sea highlights sorrow at Viola’s death and shows feminine quality – ‘danger’
‘My bosom is full of kindness’ Sebastian (Act 2 Scene 1)- connotes a traditionally feminine characteristic
‘Youth’s a stuff will not endure’ Feste (Act 2 Scene 3)- song last line is a symbol of uncertainty in life and a lack of transcience
‘And on that vice in him will my revenge find notable cause to work’ Maria (Act 2 Scene 3)- ‘revenge’ is violent and emphasises ulterior motive to harm Malvolio from start of prank
‘…we will fool him black and blue’ Sir Toby (Act 2 Scene 5)- bruising imagery to show pain to be inflicted on Malvolio. It is never just an innocent joke
‘But come what may, I do adore thee so,/That danger shall seem sport, and I will go’ Antonio (Act 2 Scene 1)- soliloquy- ‘may’ is antithesis of ‘will’, showing uncertainty.- ‘do’ is emphatic- iambic to show certainty- suggests what was previously dangerous is now pleasure, but only ‘seems’ so.
‘Poor lady, she were better love a dream’ Viola (Act 2 Scene 3)- spondee shows compassion- ‘dream’ connotes that Viola believes Olivia’s situation is awful
‘Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness’ Viola (Act 2 Scene 3)- apostrophe shows shifting blame onto something else.- Viola acknowledges deception can cause danger
‘In women’s waxen hearts…’ Viola (Act 2 Scene 3)- implies women are innately malleable
‘What is love? ‘Tis not hereafter…Youth’s a stuff will not endure’ Feste (Act 2 Scene 2)- only certainty in life will be death
‘Come, sir, you peevishly threw it to her, and her will is, is should be so returned’ Malvolio (Act 2 Scene 1)- shows Malvolio as austere
July 12, 2019