Music is obviously a constant theme through out Twelfth Night. Even the name of the main character " Viola" is spelt the same way as the instrument the viola. Music, songs, tunes..ect. are constantly being brought up in the text, there are always songs. The play itself starts with music, and ends with a song. Shakespeare relates music to passion, and extremely strong emotion.
In Act I.i, the famous opening monologue Duke Orsino says
"If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken and so die."
Orsino wants so much of it that he can't take it anymore, he wants to vomit from the excess of it. Music to these characters is something that expresses more emotion then the need for excess love.
All the fools songs, are meloncholoy and compelelty shift the play. For example his last song "For the rain, it raineth everyday."
Brings the audience back to reality, and tells them that basically its time for them all to go back reality, to the pain that everyone has to experience.
In a way music represents many thing, and it is not as romantic as everyone was assumes it is. It's almost an ugly thing, the glutinous attitude so many of the characters have towards it makes its such a hard to theme to completely grasp.
Music basically becomes the most extreme emotions. Of every emotion that is represented.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment