Does Shakespeare present Orsino's love as insincere? Megan Erridge 11th Grade

As is suggested in Armfield’s 1986 version of Twelfth Night, Orsino is certainly in love with the idea of love, at least at the beginning of the play, as his opening soliloquy is spoken as a performance to the party guests, suggesting that his proclamations of love lack sincerity. When we first meet Orsino in Act 1, Scene 1, he claims that when his ‘eyes did see Olivia first’ he though she ‘purged the air of pestilence’, suggesting that, rather than seeing Olivia as a real woman, Orsino has idealised her, turning her into something which is almost divine. The fact that the reality of who Olivia is does not appear to worry Orsino implies that his love for her is simply superficial. It is perhaps also significant that Orsino does not mention Olivia until half way through the first scene, and initially speaks only about love itself. Thus, Orsino places greater importance upon the concept of love, rather than Olivia herself. Likewise, Orsino’s final lines in Scene 1, ‘away before me to sweet beds of flowers/love thoughts lie rich when canopied with bowers’, describes the idea of love in a very visual way, reinforcing the idea that for him, love (at least for Olivia) is very superficial. This is particularly prevalent in in Armfield...