Twelfth Night is a comedy—with romance. Act 1 is about the formation of a salient love triangle and a subtle love triangle.

Scene 1: Duke Orsino is a man in love with the concept of love—and he somehow mistakens Olivia as the idealization of such. He’s oblivious to his naivity, and believes he’s in love with Olivia. Music, food, tears, flowers, and basically everything, reminds him of Olivia. Valentine comes in and announces in like pentameter that Olivia will wear a veil and be mourning unseen for seven years. Orsino doesn’t take this seriously, but instead reinterprets as further impetus in idealizing Olivia.

Duke Orsino is the first point-vertex in our love triangle. He’s a willful vertex, but like a point, he’s stuck in his own world and sees things differently, in his own belief, than what they are.

Scene 2: Viola is stranded after a shipwreck in Illyria. The Captain tells her that her twin brother might be alive—so she doesn’t spend the scene mourning for him (good!). The Captain mentions the Duke rules here, and that he’s in love with Olivia, whose own brother died following her father’s death, and who has thus made up her mind to not see anyone. Viola decides she wants to serve Olivia until she can make back her funds and regain her (affluent) identity. But, the Captain tells her that Olivia won’t see anyone; not even the Duke’s messengers. Viola then decides she wants to be disguised as a boy to work for the Duke, and she asks the Captain’s help in both keeping this secret and introducing her to him.

The story begins to betray a forming love angle—Orsino loves Olivia, who loves her late brother, and won’t see him (or any others). Viola doesn’t see herself as part of the love triangle though she will soon replace Olivia’s brother, and connect the final edge to close the love triangle.

Scene 3: Maria berates Toby for staying out late and being drunk all the time, but, enter Andrew, who’s more clueless and even more drunk. Andrew is one of Olivia’s prospective suitors, the one most recommended by her drunken uncle. He’s quite basically an idiot, and if her suitors are similar in intelligence, it becomes evident why she’d choose to “veiléd walk for seven years shedding eye-offending brine.” When even Maria rejects him, he becomes depressed—and, for want of revels (and his ducats), Toby cheers him up. Short-term memory befits an idiot, so we haven’t need to worry Sir Toby might be losing his gullible patron anytime soon.

Andrew is here, convinced by Toby, that he’s a suitable suitor for Olivia. But, Toby, in his drunkenness, tells him to woo Maria (We presume to convince Maria that Andrew is a likely fellow for Olivia). Toby is financially dependent on Andrew, so in a way, Toby and Andrew form a side of a love polygon. In my interpretation (this time), Maria already has an affinity for Toby. Thus, a complete triangle forms between the three characters in this scene alone: Maria loves (has an affinity for) Toby, who loves (is financially dependent on) Andrew, who loves (in this scene is supposed to accost) Maria.

Scene 4: Bridging Scene 3 to this, Valentine opens in prose telling Viola that Orsino favors her. Valentine’s words also help us catch up to the present; apparently, a lot has happened since Viola was a shipwrecked girl—she’s already become the Duke’s favorite (albeit pageboy). Orsino gives Cesario some touching words and advice on approaching and wooing the Lady Olivia on his behalf. Viola admits in soliloquy that she loves him.

Viola replaces Olivia’s brother’s vertex, and thus makes the connecting side, loving Duke Orsino. The salient love triangle is nearly complete.

Scene 5: Maria berates Feste for staying away too long (but, she does so in a different flavor than she did with Toby, whereas earlier, she expressed a clear affinity, now, it’s merely dry jest). But, Feste impresses Olivia, though Malvolio (in his characteristic inferiority-complex melancholy) regards him with contempt. It’s a boring day, if not for the appearance of a stubborn young nuncio named Cesario, who looks like a peascod who hasn’t yet outgrown his mother’s milk. Olivia lets him in, and she falls in love with him. (And, we have gone full triangle!)

Olivia loves Viola, completing the salient love triangle: Orsino loves Olivia; Olivia loves Viola; Viola loves Orsino.

(aside)

Another interpretation of mine is that Twelfth Night is Shakespeare’s Mulan. Like Mulan, Viola enters a new territory and has to choose to pose as a male. Viola specifically says that her father had mentioned Orsino as a bachelor. Perhaps, she falls for him, in part, because she knows her father would approve. Similarly, Mulan goes on her sojourn for the honor of her father. Though Mulan is a war story, and Twelfth Night is a love story, both Mulan and Viola have to solve complications that arise due to their gender. And, both fall in love with the man they left their father to serve—Mulan with her commanding general, and Viola with Orsino. Were Mulan not a war story, and were the conflict introduced by natural causes—such as a shipwreck—Mulan might be like Twelfth Night.

Tags: love triangles