English Language and Literature Commons^™

Discordant Desire: Morley’S Polyphony In Shakespeare’S Twelfth Night, Helen Plevka

2015 Awards for Excellence in Student Research and Creative Activity - Documents

From Orsino’s opening line, “If music be the food of love, play on,” to Feste’s concluding song of solitude, William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will is relentlessly full of music, whether explicitly calling for sound or indirectly invoking references to musical ideas (1.1.1). Shakespeare utilizes music not only to entertain the listeners of his plays but also to employ its inane ability to enhance and empower human speech. The musicality of this play, first performed at a feast on February 2, 1602, would have been understood and appreciated by its original audience as Elizabethan England experienced a golden …