Twelfth Night Quotes

Question	Answer
The appetite may sicken, and so die. Like fell and cruel hounds	Shows Orsino's desperate need for love. Being without love is painful. However, this desire for love is not for Olivia but for love itself.
What is his name? Whats she?	Shows directness and resourcefulnes of Viola due to the juxtaposition of her abrupt questions and Orsino's long hyperbolic speech. Use of what indicates how people's characters are understood in the context of their status.
conceal me what i am	Has to do this for survival and protection as female's were considered less capable and vulnerable.
cares an enemy to life	Introduced to Toby's hedonistic attitude to life. shouldn't take life to seriously.
confine yourself within the modest limits of order	Most of the characters begin by having excessive traits as the world is topsy turvy and by the end the world is flipped again. shows their is no natural order to the world and everything is socially constructed.
hes as tall a man as any in illyria...speaks three or four languages	description of sir andrew, emphasises his foolishness when he comes on stage and juxtaposes this description. ' what is porquoi?'
Already you are no stranger, thou knowest no less but all	Immediacy of orsino's attraction to cesario
yet a barful strife! who're i woo, myself would be his wife	Audience learns of violas love for Orsino.
Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage	better off dead than not being with the right person
You are sick of self love	Shows the vanity of Malvolio. Narcissism as an illness and a sin that will lead to self destruction.
every particle and utensil labelled to my will.	shows that olivia feels like she is looked at as a product, that men just want her for her beauty. she wants to be loved for who she is. blazon used. Use of 'red and white' to describe is reminiscent of petrachian love poetry which came to symbolise love and chastity, demonstrating the perception of Elizabethan women and enhancing elevating her beauty to that of the visions of love poets.
What is your parentage?	Olivia's quest for cesario's identity. Immediately interested in him and drops the mourning facade. Status as a more important in attraction, reinforced by the fact that she is happy with Sebastian even though his character is not different, but their background and 'parentage' is the same so it doesn't matter.
So quickly may one catch the plague	Shows that olivia has fallen for cesario and relates it to an illness. Love is something that imposes itself upon an individual unwillingly.
what is decreed must be, and be this so	shows olivia is letting fate determine her future, including her relationship with cesario
my stars shine darkly over me	shows sebastian's pessimism of the future and he believes his future is dark. he believes his fate will affect antonio. immediately follows Olivia's speech on fate showing that this will be her future fate.
disguise, i see thou art a wickedness	Shows that deception and disguise is dangerous and people should be themeselves.
Our frailty is the cause	Shows that women believe they are vulnerable. They are made to believe their oppression is right.
It is too hard a knot for me t'untie	Complexity of human relationships and emphasises the confusion of the love triangle. Dramatic irony as the audience have just seen sebastian and know their is a solution. Metaphor.
To bed after midnight is to go to bed betimes	shows toby trying to beat the clock and live a short life to the fall. Ephemerality of life. Logical wordplay.
My masters, are you mad?	emphasises the topsy turvy world where everyone is mad. reverses roles as the higher status usually order the lower class.
dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?	Attacking puritans and their values.
come away, come away, death	festes song reflecting the idea that people want love, but also want the 'plague' to go using oxymorons.
Play with my rich jewel	Highlights Malvolio's desire to elevate his status. He tries to play the role of an upper class nobleman. Superficiality of human desires.
this fellow is wise enough to play the fool...he must observe their mood on whom he jests	Shows that feste is playing a role to reveal truths and reveal the foolishness of humanity.
I love thee so that, maugre all thy pride, nor wit nor reason can my passion hide	Olivia declares her love for cesario. She is a slave to her passion and cannot withhold her emotions.
My desire did spur me forth	Shows antonio loves sebastian and love is a force that needs to followed up. Homoerotic love, slave to his passion.
Some are born great, some achieves greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them	Shows that Malvolio is in love with the prospect of power, not actually Olivia.
This is very midsummer madness	Emphasises the topsy turvy world of illyria
If this were played upon a stage now, i could condemn it as an improbable fiction	Fabian revealing the artificiality of human behaviour and showing that people like foolish people do exist and this is just a microcosm of a foolish society. 'All the worlds a stage' - As you like it
I take the fault on me	Shows antonio's devotion to sebastian. juxtaposes the uncaring sir toby towards Andrew. Sacrificial victim, there is a victim in this love affair, it is merely the upper classes who win.
Nothing that is so is so	emphasises the artificiality of society and human behaviour. shows the carnival world they are in.
Ill never believe a madman till i see his brains	Shows how people decieve to make people perceive them in a certain way. Links to Hamlet and the fact that he puts on an 'antic disposition' and is 'not mad, but mad in craft'. This is to allow him to observe the king to make sure he is guilty without raising suspicions as his odd behaviour is just cast off as madness.This allows him to deceive, and Feste says he will not fall for this.
My soul disputes well with my sense	Sebastian reflects on the confusing situation, believing that his soul is telling him what to do-symphosium. Rationality vs Irrationality
and so heavens so shine that they may fairly note this act of mine	reflects christian belief that marriage brings you closer to god. rhyming couplet shows resolution.
Ill sacrifice the lamb that i do love	Orsino shows that he loves cesario before revealing she is female. Biblical imagery.
A thin-faced knave, a gull!	Toby reveals he has been using andrew to fund his hedonistic lifestyle.
Ill be revenged on the whole pack of you	Sets a tragic tone to the end of the play. Reminds his audience that the difficult realities of a class structure remain intact despite the happy ending for the nobles. Unusual for a comedy ending.
act my woes	Orsino’s love for Olivia is more of a pose of love that anyone can assume. Viola is able to “act his woes” because he is also acting.
these clothes are good enough to drink in	Sir Toby is introduced as a drunkard and a fool. This characterization contradicts Toby’s social status as a noble “Sir.” Toby seems to openly mock social conventions of dress when he states that his aristocratic clothes are “good enough” for a drunk.
he's a very fool, and a prodigal	Prodigal means wasteful with his wealth, which is foolish and against the natural order in which noblemen should have outstanding qualities. He instead behaves like a commoner who does 'fencing, bear-baiting and dancing'
A brother's dead love, which she would keep fresh And lasting in her sad remembrance	Olivia’s sadness and ardent commitment to keeping that sadness “fresh” in her “remembrance” can be seen as a pose of melancholy. Contrasts to tragedy in which melancholy is genuine.
I wear not motley in my brain.	Feste does not wear “motley” on his brain, meaning his jester costume does not characterize his witty mind. In other words, his clothing, or outward appearance, does not characterize his inner personality.
Better a witty fool than a foolish wit	someone who acts foolish in trying to seem witty. This chiasmus underscores the theme of social inversion present throughout this play. Feste claims that “foolish wit” is more dangerous than a “witty fool” because a “foolish wit” falls from a privileged position and dishonors that position. Witty fool would be someone who is of lower classes but is witty, whereas foolish wit is someone like ague cheek who should be a wit but is rather foolish.
Quinapalus..."	make fun of the tendency to reference “authorities” in elevated jargon. This jargon elevates the fool to the educational status of the nobility with whom he interacts. This wordplay shapes Feste’s character and signals to the audience that he is the smartest person in the play: he is able to play with social boundaries by manipulating the meaning of words.
on that vice in him will my revenge find notable cause to work	Here, Maria claims that she will use Malvolio’s vanity to trick him into making a fool out of himself. Notice that while the other characters do not get punished for their socially subversive actions—public drunkenness, crossdressing, speaking casually with social superiors—Malvolio pays for his excessive vanity and social aspirations.
Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm...wavering, contrasts to 'they lack retention	Orsino’s final speech contradicts what he said earlier about men being fickle in their love. This is a sign of Orsino’s weak reasoning. When Viola offers a counter claim to his argument about women, Orsino changes his opinions in order to prove her wrong. This demonstrates that Orsino is not only fickle in love but in opinion, and it shows that he does not like to be proven wrong.
If I could make that resemble something in me	Notice that Malvolio interprets the words in this letter to match the fantasy in his head. This is another example of women’s with and power in this play. Like Viola, Maria knows exactly what to say to manipulate the mind of a man.
overweening	“Overweening” means excessively arrogant. Toby’s insult here suggests that Malvolio’s chief crime is aspiring to a social class and future that his birth does not permit. Malvolio too readily believes that Olivia would be in love with him and that he will be able to achieve a higher social class.
In delay there lies no plenty; Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty...	This song draws on themes of carpe diem poetry. Carpe diem poetry was a type of love poetry in Elizabethan England in which a speaker would tell his beloved about the ephemerality of life and beauty in order to convince her to “seize the day”—generally meaning to engage in a romantic relationship with the speaker.

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Twelfth Night Quotes

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	Created by Nicole McNally almost 7 years ago