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A beautiful noblewoman in Illyria. At the beginning of the play, she has rejected both Orsino and her ridiculous suitor, Sir Andrew Aguecheek. In mourning for her recently deceased brother, she has vowed not to receive any man, or to go outside, for seven years.
Olivia is a fictional character from William Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night, believed to have been written around 1600 or 1601. She is at the centre of the various plots, both the comedic and the romantic.
The two characters Olivia most closely mirrors are Orsino and, perhaps surprisingly, Malvolio. Orsino begins Twelfth Night pining away for Olivia; Olivia begins the play in mourning for her brother and father.
Lady Olivia claims at the beginning of Twelfth Night to be mourning her brother’s death. She says she will mourn for seven years and will refuse to fall in love during that time.
The single quality that characterizes Olivia best is perhaps her impetuous love and her assertion of it. She is much more aggressive in the pursuit of her love than is Duke Orsino in his pursuit of Olivia.
A wealthy, beautiful, and noble Illyrian lady, Olivia is courted by Orsino and Sir Andrew Aguecheek, but to each of them she insists that she is in mourning for her brother, who has recently died, and will not marry for seven years.
Viola, as Cesario, tells Olivia what she would do if she loved Olivia as much as Orsino: write poems of love, sing them through the night, and cry “Olivia” so loudly it would echo off the hills.
