Gender as an incidental aspect of love in Twelfth Night

Abstract

Orsino thus realizes that he loves Viola as a female rather than Olivia as he had been subliminally attracted to his effeminate eunuch in the play throughout and now that it is disclosed that she is indeed the beautiful Viola it is Viola in her female dress that he loves instead. Twelfth Night thus discloses, with the ready falling in love of Olivia with Sebastian and Orsino with Viola at the end of the play that gender is incidental to love as it is the person and character of Viola that Orsino has come to love and that indeed Olivia had fallen in love with Viola as Cesario.
Keywords: Twelfth Night, Gender, Sexual ambiguity, Love, Romance