1. What thematic strands have you located?
beauty...bloom...flowers...decay...rot...youth...growth...death...stench...
2. Where is the data you retrieved found? What is happening in context when Shakespeare employs this particular theme or image?
The data is found in Act 1, Scene 5 and Act 2, Scene 4. Act 1 uses flower to emphasize beauty, Act 2 uses flower to emphasize death. The rose is used to describe the beauty or essence of women but can also symbolize death in the sense that as soon as women blossom, as a rose blossoms, it starts to lose its beauty. The rose wilts, just as a woman ages and is not as youthful and radiant as she once was.
3. How does the data you retrieved support your first thoughts on Shakespeare's obsessive use of a particular image? What can you argue about Shakespeare's figuration?
Shakespeare uses images to convey meaning, but many meanings not just one. The use of the word flower was used as something beautiful as a woman or rose but then also something that rots or dies quickly, and is very frail. Shakespeare's figuration depends on the context of the story, but all of the words he strategically chooses have meanings that can be interpreted any which way you would like to see it.
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It's fascinating really -- Shakespeare uses figurations -- symbolism and metaphors -- in an antagonistic way actually. He turns each figuration on its end, so the reader experiences a kind of instability and uneasiness. Have we been inhabiting Illyria too?
ReplyDeleteNoting the ambiguity of flowers in the Twelfth Night proposes an intruging question regarding Shakespeare's intense focus on appearance. Perhaps Olivia is likened to flowers not only because she is strikingly beautiful, but because the impression her external beauty made shall fade away with time. People who appear gorgeous are often assumed to be genuine and sweet people. Yet, after conversing with such beauties, the opposite is often discovered. Similarly, perhaps later in the play Olivia shall be characterized indirectly in such a form that the influence of her physical characterization will be minimal. It is well known that personality is what matters more than external matters. For, appearances fade away with time, but personality does not. Perhaps Shakespeare seeks to convey such a message in the Twelfth Night.
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