Shakespeare's Art of the Insult
Love ... and bitter insults ... in Shakespeare If you’ve already overdosed on the cheap sentimentality of St. Valentine’s Day, it’s worth recalling that the Great Bard of Love, William Shakespeare, often portrayed love in its most bitter-sweet terms.Typically, love is a kind of sickness, or madness, leading to death. Have you noticed how quickly romantic, unrequited love turns to death and decay ( eros and thanatos ) at the opening of his great comedy Twelfth Night ? 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. O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou, That, notwithstanding thy capacity Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there, Of what validity and pitch soe'