You are viewing a free preview of this lesson.
Subscribe to unlock all 10 lessons in this course and every other course on LearningBro.
GCSE English Literature exams typically require you to analyse a printed extract and then link your analysis to the wider play. This lesson presents four key extracts from Twelfth Night with detailed annotations and model PEE/PEAL paragraphs.
Step 1: READ the extract carefully — twice
Step 2: IDENTIFY key language features, imagery, and techniques
Step 3: CONSIDER what the extract reveals about character and theme
Step 4: PLAN — select 3-4 points with quotations
Step 5: WRITE — PEE/PEAL paragraphs with close language analysis
Step 6: LINK to the wider play — refer to other scenes and the ending
Examiner's tip: The extract is your starting point, not your prison. The best answers use the extract as a springboard to discuss the wider play. Aim for roughly 60% extract analysis and 40% wider references.
ORSINO: If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again, it had a dying fall; O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour. Enough, no more, 'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
| Word/Phrase | Technique | Analysis |
|---|---|---|
| "food of love" | Metaphor | Love is compared to appetite — a physical craving, not a spiritual ideal |
| "excess" / "surfeiting" | Semantic field of overindulgence | Orsino wants to gorge on love until sick of it — contradictory and self-defeating |
| "sicken, and so die" | Morbid imagery | Love and death are intertwined; Orsino romanticises suffering |
| "dying fall" | Musical term + pun | A descending musical phrase, but "dying" also foreshadows the link between love and death |
| "sweet sound / That breathes upon a bank of violets" | Synaesthesia (sound + smell) | Blends senses to evoke the intoxicating effect of love; "violets" puns on "Viola" |
| "Stealing and giving odour" | Paradox | The wind both takes and gives fragrance — love is simultaneously gain and loss |
| "Enough, no more" | Abrupt shift | Seven lines in, Orsino is already bored; his love is fickle |
| "'Tis not so sweet now as it was before" | Anticlimax | The grand opening collapses into disappointment — Orsino's "love" cannot sustain itself |
Shakespeare establishes Orsino's self-indulgent love from the play's opening line. The metaphor "food of love" reduces love to a physical appetite, and Orsino's desire for "excess" — to gorge on emotion until "surfeiting, / The appetite may sicken" — reveals a paradox: he wants to cure love by overdosing on it. The semantic field of consumption ("food", "excess", "surfeiting", "appetite", "sicken") presents Orsino's love not as devotion but as gluttony. This characterisation is reinforced structurally: within just seven lines, he abruptly commands "Enough, no more", having already tired of the music he just requested. Shakespeare signals that Orsino's "love" is performative and unstable — a reading confirmed in Act 5 when he transfers his affections from Olivia to Viola in an instant. The audience is thus primed from the opening to question whether Orsino's love is genuine or merely a pleasurable pose.
VIOLA: I left no ring with her. What means this lady? Fortune forbid my outside have not charmed her. She made good view of me; indeed so much That sure methought her eyes had lost her tongue, For she did speak in starts distractedly. She loves me sure; the cunning of her passion Invites me in this churlish messenger. Poor lady, she were better love a dream. Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness Wherein the pregnant enemy does much. How easy is it for the proper false In women's waxen hearts to set their forms! Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we, For such as we are made of, such we be. O Time, thou must untangle this, not I; It is too hard a knot for me t'untie.
| Word/Phrase | Technique | Analysis |
|---|---|---|
| "I am not what I am" (implied throughout) | Existential statement | Viola defines herself by negation — her true self is hidden |
| "my outside have not charmed her" | Appearance vs reality | "Outside" = external appearance; love is based on surfaces |
| "she were better love a dream" | Metaphor | Cesario is as insubstantial as a dream — Olivia's love has no real object |
| "Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness" | Apostrophe + personification | Viola addresses disguise as if it were a person; she recognises its moral danger |
| "the pregnant enemy" | Metaphor for the devil | "Pregnant" = resourceful/cunning; the devil uses disguise as a tool |
| "women's waxen hearts" | Metaphor | Women's hearts are like wax — easily impressed (shaped) by a handsome form |
| "our frailty is the cause" | Self-awareness | Viola acknowledges female vulnerability, including her own |
| "O Time, thou must untangle this" | Apostrophe to Time | Viola surrenders agency; she cannot resolve the situation herself |
| "too hard a knot" | Nautical imagery | A tangled knot echoes the shipwreck; the plot is a web she cannot escape |
In this soliloquy, Shakespeare reveals Viola's moral complexity through the personification of disguise as "a wickedness / Wherein the pregnant enemy does much" (2.2.26--27). The phrase "pregnant enemy" invokes the devil — "pregnant" meaning cunning or resourceful — and Viola's recognition that her disguise serves evil purposes complicates her otherwise sympathetic characterisation. She is not merely a resourceful heroine; she is someone who understands that her survival strategy causes harm. The metaphor of "women's waxen hearts" extends this self-awareness: Viola acknowledges that Olivia has been deceived by a "proper false" (a handsome lie), and includes herself in the generalisation — "such as we are made of, such we be". This is remarkable for a comic heroine: she takes responsibility for the damage caused by her disguise while acknowledging that she is powerless to undo it. The couplet "O Time, thou must untangle this, not I; / It is too hard a knot for me t'untie" surrenders agency to time, using the nautical metaphor of a "knot" that recalls her shipwreck. Shakespeare thus presents Viola not as a confident schemer but as a morally aware woman trapped by circumstance — a characterisation that deepens the play's exploration of whether disguise reveals or destroys identity.
MALVOLIO: "M.O.A.I. doth sway my life." ... If I could make that resemble something in me! ... M — Malvolio. M — why, that begins my name! ... M.O.A.I. ... And yet, to crush this a little, it would bow to me, for every one of these letters are in my name. ... "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em." ... I will be proud, I will read politic authors, I will baffle Sir Toby, I will wash off gross acquaintance, I will be point-devise the very man. I do not now fool myself, to let imagination jade me; for every reason excites to this, that my lady loves me.
| Word/Phrase | Technique | Analysis |
|---|---|---|
| "M.O.A.I." | Cryptic puzzle | The letters do not actually spell "Malvolio" — he has to "crush" them to fit. His interpretation reveals his desperation |
| "crush this a little" | Ironic self-description | Malvolio admits he is forcing the evidence — yet does it anyway |
| "born great ... achieve greatness ... thrust upon 'em" | Tricolon | Builds to the comic climax; each stage is more grandiose. Deeply ironic: "greatness" here means humiliation |
| "I will be proud" | Anaphora ("I will...") | The repeated "I will" shows Malvolio already transforming into the person the letter describes — obedient, eager, self-deluded |
| "baffle Sir Toby" | Dramatic irony | Sir Toby is watching him at this very moment; Malvolio's plan to humiliate Toby is itself being staged by Toby |
| "I do not now fool myself" | Irony | This is precisely what he is doing — fooling himself. The audience's laughter comes from recognising what Malvolio cannot |
| "every reason excites to this" | Self-delusion | No reason supports this conclusion. Malvolio's "reason" is actually desire masquerading as logic |
Shakespeare exposes Malvolio's self-delusion through a masterful use of dramatic irony in the letter scene. When Malvolio declares "I do not now fool myself, to let imagination jade me", the audience is acutely aware that this is exactly what he is doing — the statement is a perfect inversion of the truth. The verb "jade" (to trick or deceive) is particularly resonant: Malvolio uses it to deny his own deception at the very moment he is most deceived. Earlier, his admission that he must "crush this a little" to make "M.O.A.I." fit his name reveals a mind that recognises the weakness of the evidence but overrides it with desire. Shakespeare structures the scene so that three hidden observers — Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Fabian — function as an onstage audience, their reactions guiding the offstage audience's laughter. This creates a layered theatrical experience: we watch watchers watching a man who does not know he is watched. The effect is to make Malvolio both ridiculous and, subtly, sympathetic — his "crime" is wanting to be loved, and his punishment will far exceed his offence.
Subscribe to continue reading
Get full access to this lesson and all 10 lessons in this course.