Twelfth Night Lesson Plan

Analyze the opening monologue from Orsino, beginning with "If music be the food of love..." and ending with "That it alone is highly fantastical" (1.1.1-15). In particular, focus on what Orsino is saying about the nature of love.

Though sometimes performed as a triumphant declaration of the sublimity of love, Orsino's first lines establish love as miserable and desire as uniquely imaginative. Instead of declaring that music is the food of love, Orsino is instead suggesting that if music be the food (or that which appeases the appetites) of love, then he desires that the music "play on," such that his love might be satiated ("so sicken"), and then "so die." If this...