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Irony
Explanation and Analysis—Sonnet Love:
Throughout Twelfth Night, Shakespeare parodies the popular Elizabethan concept of "sonnet love." In 17th century England, romantic sonnets usually centered on the poet's desire for an idealized, unattainable love object, and these sonnets often contained a catalogue of the love object's physical attributes called a blazon.
When Viola attempts to woo Olivia on Orsino's behalf, in Act 1, Scene 5, she argues that it would be unfair for Olivia to die without having children:
Viola: ’Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white
Nature’s own sweet and cunning hand laid on.
Lady, you are the cruel’st she alive
If you will lead these graces to the grave
And leave the world no copy.
Viola's words echo some of Shakespeare's own sonnets, which often end with him urging the object of his love to procreate in order to immortalize their beauty. Sonnet 12, for example, ends with the line, "And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defence / Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence."
Viola's description of Olivia's "red and white" beauty also echoes this line from Sonnet 130: "I have seen roses damasked, red and white, / But no such roses see I in her cheeks." Sonnet 130 is itself a satire that pokes fun at many poetic conventions, including the blazon.
In response to Viola's argument, Olivia satirically blazons her own beauty:
Olivia: I will give
out divers schedules of my beauty. It shall be
inventoried and every particle and utensil labeled
to my will: as, item, two lips indifferent red; item,
two gray eyes with lids to them; item, one neck, one
chin, and so forth.
Rather than using metaphor to elevate her features, as a poet might, Olivia states them plainly. Her argument that she does not need to reproduce and can simply record her beauty on paper reflects sonnet 18, in which Shakespeare expresses his belief that beauty can be immortalized through poetry: "So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."
Ironically, even though Olivia rejects Orsino's sonnet-like love, she is immediately attracted to Viola/Cesario as a result of his poetic language. Although a blazon usually catalogues female features, Olivia's sudden infatuation with Cesario inspires her to blazon his physical and spiritual attributes:
Olivia: Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and spirit
Do give thee fivefold blazon.
Earlier in the play, in Act 1, Scene 4, Orsino also blazons Cesario's features in a manner that feels far from platonic, implying a homoerotic attraction:
Orsino: Diana’s lip
Is not more smooth and rubious, thy small pipe
Is as the maiden’s organ, shrill and sound,
And all is semblative a woman's part.
"Cesario," of course, is actually a woman, but in this moment, Orsino fully believes him to be a man. Shakespeare, of course, was no stranger to the poetic adoration of the male form, as a whopping 126 of his sonnets were addressed to an unnamed young man known as the "Fair Youth."
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