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Figurative Language In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

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The figurative language of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” effectively conveys the extent of Duke Orsino’s love for Olivia. Orsino is under the impression that his love does not compare to that of a woman for a man. Apparently, no woman is strong enough to “bide the beating of so strong a passion” or has a heart that is big enough “to hold so much” as he (II.4.104-106). Orsino feels as if the intensity and extent of his love are greater than any kind that women are capable of sustaining and uses metaphor to communicate this difference. Supposedly, a woman’s love “may be called appetite, no motion of the liver, but the palate” (II.4.107-108). Orsino plays on the functional differences between the the liver and the palate in the satisfaction of

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