Twelfth Night (OCR A-Level English Literature): Revision Notes
Key Quotations
Understanding key quotations is essential for your exam success. This note organises important quotations from Twelfth Night by theme, helping you to connect ideas across the play and demonstrate your knowledge effectively.
How to use quotations in your exam
Grouping quotations by theme or character makes revision more effective and helps you draw meaningful connections in your essays. When writing about a particular extract, examiners value your ability to link ideas to other parts of the play. You can do this by including short quotations or references from elsewhere in Twelfth Night that show connections, contrasts, or demonstrate how themes develop throughout the play.
Paired quotations are particularly useful. These are two quotations from different parts of the play that, when analysed together, reveal important connections or changes in character or theme. This note highlights such pairings to support your analysis.
Exam tip: You don't need to memorise dozens of quotations. Focus on learning a few key quotations really well, understanding their wider significance in the play. Examiners also reward textual references (plot points mentioned without direct quotations). Quality matters more than quantity - you won't get extra marks simply for including more quotations. Try to remember key words from important quotations so you can embed the most significant language in your answers.
Love and desire
Shakespeare's comedies, including Twelfth Night, typically revolve around frustrated desire, romantic complications, misunderstandings and love triangles. However, these problems are always resolved by the end, usually with weddings or marriages. Twelfth Night concludes with three marriages, following the conventions of Shakespearean comedy.
The play exposes hypocrisies within romance, particularly mocking insincere and changeable love. Shakespeare also explores how desire powerfully influences people from all walks of life, regardless of their social status or gender. Twelfth Night suggests that love does not discriminate, affecting everyone equally.
Orsino's changeable desire (paired quotations)
If music be the food of love, play on,/Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting,/The appetite may sicken, and so die
— Orsino, Act I, Scene I
Enough; no more: Tis not so sweet now as it was before
— Orsino, Act I, Scene I
Meaning and context
The play opens with these lines from Orsino, Duke of Illyria, who delivers a soliloquy expressing his lovesick state. He suffers from unrequited love for Lady Olivia and commands his musicians to play so much music that it will satisfy his hunger for her. However, he quickly changes his mind and asks them to stop playing because the music has lost its effect.
Analysis
This famous opening uses metaphor to convey the melancholic emotions of unrequited love. Orsino believes music will satisfy his longing, and the connection between music and thwarted love introduces the themes of madness and excess as consequences of desire.
Within the same soliloquy, Orsino's contrasting instructions to the musicians reveal important aspects of his character. He appears as both a powerful man of status who can command others, and as someone who doesn't know his own mind. Through Orsino's behaviour, Shakespeare presents ideas about fickle desire and love for the idea of love itself, rather than genuine affection.
Key terms:
- Soliloquy: a speech delivered by a character alone on stage, revealing their inner thoughts
- Unrequited love: romantic feelings that are not returned by the other person
- Metaphor: a figure of speech that describes something by saying it is something else
Viola's passionate declaration
Make me a willow cabin at your gate/And call upon my soul within the house
— Viola, Act I, Scene V
Meaning and context
In this scene, Viola, disguised as Cesario, is sent by Orsino to deliver his love messages to Olivia. She delivers a passionate speech on Orsino's behalf, but her eloquent words accidentally cause Olivia to fall in love with Cesario instead. Here, Viola describes how determined Orsino would be if Olivia returned his love - he would stay outside her gate day and night, proclaiming his devotion until she relented.
The dramatic irony is that although Viola speaks on behalf of Orsino, the audience knows she is really expressing her own love for Orsino. This creates a complex layer of meaning.
Analysis
Viola, speaking as Cesario, delivers sophisticated and sincere words about love. The metaphor demonstrates her wisdom and genuine feeling, contrasting sharply with how we've already seen Orsino actually behaves - staying at home and pining to music rather than actively pursuing Olivia.
Dramatic irony intensifies the scene because the audience knows Viola speaks from her heart about her longing for Orsino. This speech begins to raise questions about what constitutes genuine love. The shift in perspective from third-person (he) to first-person (me) signals the coming confusions within the love triangle: Orsino loves Olivia, who is falling in love with Cesario, who in turn loves Orsino.
Shakespeare presents how disguise and deception complicate love and desire. Viola, dressed as a man, suffers because she must hide her real identity and cannot express her love for Orsino. This explores societal attitudes to sexuality in Elizabethan society, where homosexuality was considered sinful and opposed Christian values. When Olivia falls in love with someone she believes is a man but is actually a woman, Shakespeare raises important questions about the true nature of love.
Key terms:
- Dramatic irony: when the audience knows something that characters on stage do not, creating tension or humour
- Elizabethan society: the period during Queen Elizabeth I's reign (1558-1603), when Shakespeare wrote his plays
Feste and Orsino on love's fleeting nature (paired quotations)
What is love? Tis not hereafter;/Present mirth hath present laughter
— Feste, Act II, Scene III
Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,/More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn
— Orsino, Act II, Scene IV
Meaning and context
Feste sings this song during a light-hearted drinking scene with Sir Toby and Sir Andrew. The scene captures both the revelry and reflection associated with Twelfth Night celebrations. Feste suggests that love is fleeting and easily changeable. Similarly, Orsino discusses how feelings of love and desire are unpredictable and unstable.
Analysis
Feste, the fool, explores love's nature through song, acting as an omniscient observer of the courtly events. This allows Shakespeare to present ideas about love without making the play overly melodramatic. Feste asks a rhetorical question to introduce questions about love's true nature. His use of adverbials of time (hereafter, present) presents love as time-dependent, suggesting love and happiness can only exist in the present moment.
Orsino similarly conveys his attitude to love through a list of adjectives describing romantic notions as weak and unstable. Both characters agree that love is changeable and temporary.
Key terms:
- Omniscient: all-knowing; Feste observes and comments on events while understanding more than other characters
- Rhetorical question: a question asked for effect rather than to receive an answer
- Adverbials of time: words or phrases that indicate when something happens
Viola's patient love
She sat like patience on a monument,/Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?
— Viola as Cesario, Act II, Scene V
Meaning and context
Viola, disguised as Cesario, describes love to Orsino. The audience knows she discusses her own unspoken desire for Orsino himself, but disguised as a man, she cannot express it directly. She describes love as patient and constant as a monument, yet acknowledges that unspoken love brings grief and pain.
Analysis
Viola's disguise creates irony in her words and raises questions about deception and love. Her simile compares love to a stable and steadfast building, an image Shakespeare often uses to describe pure and genuine love. The rich personification of love as patient and resilient in the face of challenge suggests to the audience that her feelings for Orsino are strong and sincere.
Nevertheless, her rhetorical question highlights how she believes love and pain are inextricably linked. This contrasts with Orsino's self-indulgent melancholy, showing the difference between genuine love and self-love.
Key terms:
- Simile: a comparison using like or as
- Personification: giving human qualities to non-human things
- Inextricably: impossible to separate
Excess
Twelfth Night presents ideas about excessive emotions - whether excessive grief, hyperbolic proclamations of love, or hallucinations and sickness derived from intense desire. Shakespeare's play comments on how madness can result from excessive melodrama. Throughout Shakespeare's writing, he ridiculules courtly dramatics and celebrates the virtues of humble partnerships that are not centred around societal norms. The characters in Twelfth Night typically demonstrate insincere dramatisations that result from self-love or delusions.
Key terms:
- Hyperbolic: exaggerated, over-the-top
- Melodrama: exaggerated or sensationalised dramatic behaviour
Malvolio's madness (paired quotations)
My masters are you mad? Or what are you? Have you/no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like/tinkers at this time of night?
— Malvolio, Act II, Scene III
Good Sir Topas,/ do not think I am mad. They have laid me here/in hideous darkness
— Malvolio, Act IV, Scene II
Meaning and context
In the first quotation, Malvolio asks Sir Toby and Sir Andrew if they are mad because they are drunk and behaving like common people late at night. His question about their honesty is ironic because later, the household staff deceive Malvolio himself. In Act IV, Scene II, Malvolio has been declared mad by Olivia after his foolish and uncharacteristic dancing. He is locked in a dark chamber and convinced he has lost his mind.
Analysis
Malvolio's indignant rhetorical questions reveal his attitude to madness. In a list, he suggests madness manifests in a lack of self-control and decorum. The audience finds it humorous that Malvolio defines madness as dishonesty because he himself is dishonest in his intentions with Olivia. Shakespeare highlights hypocrisies resulting from excess vanity.
Analysis of Dramatic Reversal
Shakespeare creates a powerful dramatic reversal through these paired quotations. Malvolio first defines madness as loss of control and dishonesty, then later experiences exactly what he condemned. This pattern demonstrates Shakespeare's technique of using character development to explore themes of excess and self-deception.
Shakespeare pokes fun at Malvolio's definition of madness when Malvolio himself later loses all sense of self-control and decorum whilst dancing for Olivia. The theme of madness is symbolised through darkness. Malvolio's change of dress from black to yellow leads to his imprisonment, and he describes the darkness as hideous. This could connect ideas of madness with lack of clarity or hidden vision resulting from deluded and excessive desire.
Olivia's confession of madness
I am as mad as he,/If sad and merry madness equal be
— Olivia, Act III, Scene IV
Meaning and context
Olivia speaks this line after declaring Malvolio mad and having him locked up. She refers to a different kind of madness - her intense and sudden desire for Cesario. Olivia links sadness, happiness and madness, suggesting confused and chaotic romantic feelings.
Analysis
Olivia's simile, comparing her own madness to Malvolio's, once again highlights madness associated with excess of any kind. Malvolio's madness results from his gullible and deluded self-love, which Elizabethans associated with a form of melancholic narcissism. Olivia's madness comes from her unstable feelings for Cesario.
The irony of her flippant comparison is not lost on an audience who knows she has fallen in love with a woman whilst believing her to be a man, and is therefore deluded herself. This dramatic irony reinforces Shakespeare's exploration of how appearance can deceive and how desire can cloud judgment.
Midsummer madness
Why, this is very midsummer madness
— Olivia, Act III, Scene IV
Meaning and context
Olivia expresses her surprise after witnessing Malvolio's uncharacteristic and foolish performance. She blames his strange behaviour on the fact it is midsummer. In English literary language, there is an implicit association between heat and madness. Examples of metaphor symbolise connections between heat and unpredictable moods. There is also a connection to rabid dogs, as heat could bring on rabies.
Analysis
As the play opened on Twelfth Night, this reference could be ironic. It could refer to the madness of the celebratory festival or to the madness of love. Olivia's remark suggests her surprise - the modifying adverb "very" emphasises Olivia's shock at Malvolio's behaviour. His change from puritanical to colourful and cheerful is drastic.
The alliteration of "midsummer madness" highlights Olivia's shock, which is particularly funny to an audience who is complicit in the joke. The comedic scene is hyperbolic in nature, a typical convention of comedy and parody.
Key terms:
- Alliteration: repetition of the same sound at the beginning of adjacent words
- Parody: an imitation of something, done to create a humorous or satirical effect
Olivia's excessive grief (paired quotations)
The element itself till seven years' heat/Shall not behold her face at ample view,/But like a cloistress she will veiled walk
— Valentine, Act I, Scene I
The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul being in heaven
— Feste, Act I, Scene V
Meaning and context
Valentine introduces Olivia in the first act, explaining that she is mourning the deaths of her father and brother for seven years. He reports that she will hide from sight as if she were a nun. The fool, Feste, later tells Olivia she is foolish to mourn her brother's death and should be pleased he is in heaven rather than hell.
Analysis
Again, the reference to heat and excess is made - here describing Olivia's long period of mourning. Valentine contrasts the heat with a reference to a veil, suggesting she is hiding away. His simile, comparing her to a nun, hints at the extreme actions Olivia takes in her grief.
The fool, however, mocks her excessive grieving by tricking her with wordplay. While he is the fool in the court, he tells Olivia she is the fool. He mocks her religious grieving by explaining she should be happy her brother is in heaven. This highlights the absurdity of excessive mourning.
Key term:
- Cloistress: a nun who lives in a religious community
Appearance and reality
Twelfth Night's plot revolves around disguise and deception. Shakespeare's comedies often create confusing situations based on what is real and what is not, achieving comedic effect. The use of dramatic irony allows audiences to laugh at characters as they respond foolishly, ignorant of the truth. Viola's disguise as a man acts as the catalyst for the play's messages about the hypocrisies of appearance.
Viola on disguise (paired quotations)
Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness,/Wherein the pregnant enemy does much
— Viola, Act II, Scene II
I am not what I am
— Viola, Act III, Scene I
Meaning and context
When Viola, dressed as Cesario, learns that Olivia has fallen in love with her, she realises the consequences of her deception. She describes disguise as wicked and contributing to evil. Later, Cesario tries to tell Olivia why she cannot return her love. The audience is aware that Cesario (Viola in disguise) is speaking the truth.
Analysis
Viola directly addresses Disguise, personifying it to bring a serious tone to the metaphor. She tells it she can clearly see that it leads to evil. Her use of the word "enemy" suggests she is fully aware of how damaging and dangerous deception can be.
Analysis of Paradox
The irony of Viola's later explanation to Olivia that "I am not what I am" creates a fascinating paradox. The declarative sentence tells Olivia the truth, while audiences are amused as they know Viola is deceiving Olivia nonetheless. This demonstrates Shakespeare's skill in using language to explore multiple layers of meaning simultaneously - Viola is both honest (she's not the man she appears) and deceptive (she continues the disguise).
This raises important questions about the relationship between appearance and reality.
Key terms:
- Declarative sentence: a statement that provides information
- Pregnant enemy: the devil or evil force that takes advantage of situations
Feste's disguise as a priest
Well, I'll put it on and I will dissemble myself in't;/and I would I were the first that ever dissembled in such a gown
— Feste, Act IV, Scene II
Meaning and context
Feste, the fool, dresses up as a priest to trick Malvolio into confessing his madness. He plans to exorcise the demons from Malvolio. In this line, Feste jokes about how many other people pretend (dissemble) when they wear a priest's gown.
Analysis
Shakespeare portrays the ease with which characters are duped and manipulated by costume. Not only does Viola outwit the other characters (although Feste alludes to not being convinced), but Feste involves himself in disguise as well. This is typical of the antics of Twelfth Night, traditionally a time for disguises and masks.
Shakespeare's dig at religion brings humour to the line as Feste hints that he may not be the only pretender wearing a priest's gown. This satirical comment suggests that religious figures may also be hiding their true nature behind their costumes - a bold statement for Elizabethan England where the church held significant power.
Key term:
- Dissemble: to disguise one's true motives or feelings; to pretend
Gender and sexuality
Twelfth Night raises numerous questions regarding the nature of gender and sexual identity. Essentially, Viola's cross-dressing creates the comedy, as characters are tricked and confused by her ambiguous gender. Shakespeare comments on gender fluidity through characterisations of effeminate men and by illustrating the ease with which characters are deceived by appearance and actions. This suggests that the idea of gender is societal rather than biological. The play also explores the fluidity of sexuality as Shakespeare exposes hypocrisies within social norms.
Key terms:
- Gender fluidity: the concept that gender exists on a spectrum rather than in fixed categories
- Effeminate: having qualities traditionally associated with women
- Cross-dressing: wearing clothing typically associated with the opposite gender
Viola's feminine appearance (paired quotations)
Thy small pipe/Is as the maiden's organ, shrill and sound,/And all is semblative a woman's part
— Orsino, Act I, Scene IV
He is very well-favoured and he speaks very shrewishly; one would think his mother's milk were scarce out of him
— Malvolio, Act I, Scene V
Meaning and context
When Orsino says this to Viola (disguised as Cesario), he alludes to Viola's naturally feminine voice. Although he mentions this, Orsino does not doubt his new page-boy and considers him simply effeminate. Malvolio's description of Cesario (Viola) to Olivia confirms this impression. The description of his voice as shrewish alludes to a derogatory term comparing women to shrews because of their high-pitched nagging. However, Malvolio is tricked by the disguise and believes this is because Cesario is young.
Analysis
It is made clear that the characters are convinced by Viola's disguise because they perceive her as an effeminate young man. This highlights the significance of appearance within gender constructs. In particular, because the part of Viola would have been played by a man in Shakespeare's theatres, the confusing nature of Viola's gender is ironic. The comedic effect of a man playing a female character who is disguised as a man, yet is described as woman-like, conveys Shakespeare's ideas on the fluidity of gender.
It has been suggested that Shakespeare hints at Orsino's homosexual attraction to Cesario here. At the end of the play, Orsino proposes to Viola once she is in woman's weeds, but some interpretations suggest his attraction existed throughout. This reading challenges traditional heteronormative interpretations and shows Shakespeare's willingness to explore complex sexual identities.
Key term:
- Shrewish: bad-tempered or aggressively assertive (a derogatory term historically used for women)
Viola's hidden identity (paired quotations)
My father had a daughter loved a man,/As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman
— Viola as Cesario, Act II, Scene IV
I am all the daughters of my father's house,/And all the brothers too: and yet I know not.
— Viola as Cesario, Act II, Scene IV
Meaning and context
Viola, disguised as Cesario, speaks passionately about her love for Orsino. However, she hides the real meaning in her words as she is unable to confess her love for him whilst dressed as a man. In these lines, Viola tells Orsino a story about an imaginary daughter, a sister who does not exist. Orsino, unaware Viola is referring to herself, thinks her meaning is metaphorical - that she (he) is her father's only surviving child.
Analysis
The scene is dramatic and tense. Viola's desperation to tell the truth about her real gender is presented in an emotive and metaphorical speech. Shakespeare illustrates the suffering Viola experiences as she hides her real identity. Viola's grief for her presumed-dead brother Sebastian, coupled with her unspoken love for Orsino, is veiled behind clever double-meanings.
Analysis of Gender Construction
Shakespeare purposely confuses the idea of gender when Viola adds "as it might be, perhaps, were I a woman". This is ironic as the audience knows her true identity. Viola's sophisticated explanation of gender is typical of Shakespeare's female characters - he often creates female characters who speak wisely and sensibly about discrimination or love.
Her deliberate and rhetorical statement that she is "all the daughters" and "all the sons" of her father's house alludes to gender as all one and the same. This suggests that the qualities of love, grief and loyalty are human qualities, not dependent on gender.
Key term:
- Metaphorical: symbolic or representing something else
Remember!
Key Points to Remember:
- Organise quotations by theme to make connections across the play and demonstrate development of ideas
- Learn fewer quotations well rather than many superficially - understand their wider significance in context
- Use paired quotations to show how Shakespeare develops themes or reveals character changes throughout the play
- Include textual references (mentioning plot points) as well as direct quotations in your exam responses
- Focus on key themes: love and desire, excess and madness, appearance and reality, gender and sexuality
- Understand dramatic techniques: Shakespeare uses dramatic irony, disguise, and wordplay to create comedy and explore serious themes
- Consider historical context: Elizabethan attitudes to love, madness, religion and sexuality inform the play's meanings