Orsino – blind in love:
-Obsessed with love and romance, loves love
-Stereotype of the love-sick, courtly lover
-His desire to be in love and his obsession with it blinds him to reality.
Therefore, he cannot see things clearly and denies reality. For example, he cannot clearly see:
1) THE TRUE NATURE OF LOVE – he confuses his feelings of infatuation with true love;
2) THE OBJECT OF HIS LOVE (Olivia) – he does not know her. Instead, he idealizes her and fantasizes about her most admirable qualities, though she may very well be completely different from what he imagines.
Orsino fantasizes about love, and says it “is quick and fresh” or always full of life and new beginnings (1.1.9). In other words, he believes that love will always feel like it does at first, and cannot imagine that love could wear thin or become difficult. He also exaggerates its power to take hold of people when he says that it “Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,/ Of what validity and pitch soe’er, /But falls into abatement and low price” (1.1. 11-13). He means that love overcomes a person, like the vast waters of the sea, and that everything else, no matter how valuable or important, seems small in the face of love. Orsino exaggerates about love, and describes the feelings of infatuation, not real love.
Olivia – blind to love:
Fantasizes love
Succumbs to feelings, ignores rational thought
Olivia fantasizes about love by immediately falling for Cesario’s looks and speech and describes “this youth’s perfections” (1.5.276), idealizing him by calling him perfect, based only on his outward appearance.
- Also, she “fear[s] to find/ Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind” because she is worried that what she sees is overpowering her judgment. However, she quickly changes her mind, adding that people are usually not their own masters and that anything can happen, so she may as well throw all caution to the wind.
Love
- is accepting; acknowledges faults in the other person but still loves her/him
- is honest, open, and loyal – does not change when times get difficult, or when unpleasant things occur – involves standing by someone, no matter what
- involves feeling a connection that has more to do with being comfortable and being oneself with the other person – mind and spirit connect
- loving someone means caring and having respect for them
- it involves trust, compassion, understanding, patience
Infatuation
- is flirtatious, playful
- is changeable – one day you’re in love with one person, the next day you have a crush on someone else
- is an obsession- always thinking of the other person, wondering what they are thinking
- involves lust and physical attraction, not based on sharing common interests and ideas
- idealizes the other person and rejects the idea that s/he could have faults
- is focused on impressing the other person