English major Jeannie Huff will be participating in the 2nd annual Undergraduate Conference on Medieval Studies and Early Modern Studies at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on December 1st. She was selected from a national competition to participate in this academic conference.
Huff’s paper “The Parody of Courtly Love as Exemplified in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night,” was originally written for her Literature of the English Renaissance class, which is taught by Dr. Karmen Lenz. Dr. Lenz, who emphasizes undergraduate research in her classroom, will travel with Ms. Huff to the conference.
“The Parody of Courtly Love as Exemplified in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night”
Twelfth Night is clearly a statement of the value of love that all of Shakespeare’s comedies seemingly celebrate. It raises ironic questions about the ways in which the difficulties of love are resolved in the Renaissance era. In Shakespeare’s examination of love in Twelfth Night, he explores the importance of love, and seems to question the ideals of love (namely “courtly love”) that the play endorses. He states, through the idea of gender confusion, that there lies the need to defy the rules of love that were maintained in the period in order to really understand what love is. The most obvious manifestation of this occurs in the love triangle of Orsino, Viola, and Olivia.