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1. As You Like It is a retreat into a pastoral vision quite different from the gritty urban edge of The Merchant of Venice or the family bitterness of Much Ado About Nothing. Although those plays profess to end happily, they have led the audience through uncomfortable and distressing moments. After pushing towards the borders of comedy in those two plays, however, Shakespeare centers As You Like It in a green world of generosity and celebration. Threats seem distant even as they are uttered, and we are more preoccupied with the sight of four sets of lovers than with exile and punishment.
Video clips for As You Like It are from a taped stage performance at Stratford, Ontario and from the 2007 film directed by Kenneth Branagh. You will find striking contrasts between two versions of the same scene. The Canadian production has great freshness and spontaneity, as one might expect from "live" theater. Branagh tries for more studied effects in his film, with stunningly beautiful set and locations. He also pays careful attention to the principal villains, Duke Frederick and Oliver, and explores their conflicted minds. (Note that Brian Blessed plays both Dukes.)
2. The play does begin with debates between Nature and Fortune, and Nature and Nurture, themes which are woven into the dark world of King Lear a few years later. Orlando, the youngest of three brothers, is treated wretchedly by the eldest, Oliver, who conceives a hatred based on envy of Orlando's natural gifts:
I hope I
shall see an end of him; for my soul, yet I know not why, hates nothing more
than he. Yet he's gentle, never
schooled and yet learned, full of noble device, of all sorts enchantingly beloved;
and indeed so much in the heart of the world, and especially of my own people,
who best know him, that I am altogether misprised. (1.1.157-163)
Fortune has given Oliver status and power, however, and he is determined to have Charles, the wrestler, dispose of Orlando. But this play lives in a fairy tale world, as we hear from Charles himself as he describes the exile of the old Duke, Rosalind's father:
They say
he is already in the forest of Arden, and a many merry men with him; and
there they live like the old Robin
Hood of England. They say many young gentlemen
flock to him every day, and fleet the time carelessly,
as they did in the
golden world. (111-115)
This blending of classical and folk myths even has a Christian echo, with Arden close enough to Eden. Such a world will not sustain murder, and we cannot take the plot too seriously. Orlando can survive bad nurturing by his fortunate brother because he is sustained by "the spirit of my father" (21):
3. Nature and Fortune are debated outright by Rosalind and Celia in the second scene:
Celia. Let
us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel, that her gifts
may henceforth be bestowed equally.
Rosalind. I would we could do so, for her benefits are mightily misplaced,
and the bountiful blind woman doth most mistake in her gifts to women.
Celia. 'Tis true; for those that she makes fair, she scarce makes honest,
and those that she makes honest,
she makes very ill-favoredly.
Rosalind. Nay, now thou goest from Fortune's office to Nature's. Fortune
reigns in gifts of the world,
not in the lineaments of Nature. (30-41)
Shakespearian comedy strives to unite heroes who have good natures with the good fortunes they deserve. Characters with good natures but bad nurturing, like Orlando or Celia, may keep their good natures despite a bad fortune. Rosalind has had good nurturing, and hopes to mend her bad fortune.
Interpretation: performance and the text.
4. Audiences are drawn to As You Like It more for its portraits of love than for its debates about abstract ideas. There are four couples in various stages and kinds of love, vividly drawn, and the first is Rosalind and Orlando. They meet at the wrestling match, and as a later character puts it, " Dead Shepherd, now I find thy saw of might,/ 'Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?'" (3.5.81-82). The Dead Shepherd is Christopher Marlowe, author of Hero and Leander, a tragic love poem. Shakespeare himself had mused about love at first sight in A Midsummer Night's Dream a few years earlier.
5. Duke Frederick, the evil younger brother of Rosalind's banished father, tries to separate his daughter Celia from Rosalind, using arguments reminiscent of Oliver's envy of Orlando:
She is
too subtle for thee; and her smoothness,
Her very silence and her patience,
Speak to the people, and they pity her.
Thou art a fool. She robs thee of thy name,
And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous
When she is gone. (1.3.75-80)
"The Duke is humorous" (1.2.256), meaning unbalanced. The two friends escape to the forest, bringing the wise fool, Touchstone, for company. Rosalind puts on a male disguise, Ganymede, for protection, and so begins the complicated play on gender that eventually has the boy actor in Shakespeare's company playing Rosalind who plays Ganymede playing Rosalind in the mock wooing with Orlando:
And so they enter the green world of Arden, where the Duke lives in pastoral simplicity:
Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam;
The seasons' difference, as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
"This is no flattery; these are counselors
That feelingly persuade me what I am."
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything. (2.1.1-17)
Notice "the penalty of Adam," original sin in this Arden/Eden. Adam is also the name of Orlando's servant, a reminder of an earlier golden world: "O good old man, how well in thee appears/ The constant service of the antique world" (2.4.56-57).
6. The forest of Arden may be a golden world, or a green world, but it's wintertime and the journey is a harsh one:
Corin the shepherd welcomes them, and so the sojourn in Arden takes on its characteristic balance of opposites. The Duke's men have their resident cynic, Jacques, as Rosalind and Celia have the satirical voice of Touchstone:
While Touchstone is a professional jester, Jacques has become a nay-sayer, forever casting a shadow over the lives of the Duke's men. To be rewarded for his satirical attacks would please Jacques:
Invest me
in my motley; give me leave
To speak my mind, and I will through and through
Cleanse the foul body of th' infected world,
If they will patiently receive my medicine. (2.7.58-61)
But the Duke knows something of Jacques' history:
Most mischievous
foul sin, in chiding sin.
For thou thyself hast been a libertine,
As sensual as the brutish sting itself;
And all th' embossèd sores and headed evils,
That thou with license of free foot hast caught,
Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world. (64-69)
Shakespearian comedy is all about finding your balance, but Jacques is all extremes, even at the end of the play. The passage we just read suggests that Jacques brings with him a sense of disease, and Richard Pasco is a more unsettling Jacques in the BBC production:
7. The rest of the inhabitants of Arden, new and old, are poised in playful equilibrium: Touchstone and Corin debate the court versus the country, Orlando and Jaques argue optimism versus cynicism, and the disguised Rosalind proposes to cure Orlando's lovesickness by pretending to be herself:
Another pair of lovers emerges, and Jaques' interference prevents the exploitation of Audrey by another cynic, Touchstone:
The play is dancing its way towards closure with couples and trios pulling each other in opposite directions, all in the service of comic balance.
8. The most complicated balancing act proves to be Rosalind's, because Phebe desires her (at first sight) instead of William. Phebe plays the haughty mistress of courtly love tradition, a ridiculous posture for a country girl. Rosalind will call herself both actor (3.4.56) and magician (5.2.61,71) to manage their love affair as well as her own. Here she begins with Phebe:
I think she means to tangle my eyes too!
No, faith, proud mistress, hope not after it;
'Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair,
Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream
That can entame my spirits to your worship...
But mistress, know yourself. Down on your knees,
And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love;
For I must tell you friendly in your ear,
Sell when you can, you are not for all markets.
Cry the man mercy, love him, take his offer;
Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer; (3.5.44-48,57-62)
9. Next Rosalind must teach Orlando how to keep his balance in love:
Rosalind. Well,
in her person I say I will not have you.
Orlando. Then, in mine own person, I die.
Rosalind. No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost six thousand
years old, and in all this time there was not any man died in his own person,
videlicit,
in a love cause. Troilus had his brains dashed out with a Grecian club; yet he
did what he could to die before, and he is one of the patterns of love. Leander,
he would have lived many a fair year though Hero had turned nun, if it had not
been for a hot midsummer night; for, good youth, he went but forth to wash him
in the Hellespont, and being taken with the cramp was drowned; and the foolish
chroniclers
of that age found it was "Hero of Sestos." But these are all lies. Men have died
from time to time, and worms have eaten
them,
but not for love. (4.1.87-102)
She alters the form of the mock wedding a few line later to teach him moderation when married as well:
Rosalind. Now tell me how long you would have her after you
have possessed her.
.
Orlando For ever and a day.
Rosalind. Say "a day," without the "ever." No, no, Orlando; men are
April when they woo, December when they wed.
maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I
will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen, more clamorous
than a parrot against rain, more newfangled than an ape, more giddy in my desires
than a monkey. I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will
do that when you are disposed to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that
when thou art inclined to sleep. (135-149)
10. Shakespeare moves rapidly to closure in As You Like It. Out of the complexity of unrequited and disguised lovers we are thrown into a whirlwind of plot twists and sudden disclosures. This is Shakespearian metadrama, the self-conscious play making itself through Rosalind the actor-magician and a few last minute surprises. Oliver turns up in Arden, driven out by Duke Frederick and ready for conversion and repentance. Orlando stumbled upon him and (strange to say) a lioness ready to pounce:
Oliver. Twice did he turn his back and purposed so;
But kindness, nobler ever than revenge,
And nature, stronger than his just occasion,
Made him give battle to the lioness,
Who quickly fell before him; in which hurtling
From miserable slumber I awaked...
The lioness had torn some flesh away,
Which all this while had bled; and now he fainted,
And cried, in fainting, upon Rosalind.
Brief, I recover'd him, bound up his wound;
And after some small space, being strong at heart,
He sent me hither, stranger as I am,
To tell this story, that you might excuse
His broken promise, and to give this napkin
Dyed in his blood, unto the shepherd youth
That he in sport doth call his Rosalind.
[Rosalind swoons.] (4.3.129-133, 148-157)
Recovered from her fainting spell, Rosalind appears to Orlando just after Oliver has confessed his sudden love for Celia/Aliena. Her riddles to Orlando, Phebe, and Silvius promise a magic solution to their heartaches, and set up the final scene:
11. Comedy ends in festivity if all is well, and even the god of marriage graces the last scene. All difficulties are miraculously resolved, Rosalind emerges from her disguise, Duke Frederick is converted, Rosalind's father finds a daughter, and the lovers dance away. As the last gesture of this metadrama, the "boy actor" playing Rosalind speaks an Epilogue to the audience, reminding us that Shakespeare has returned to the fold of happy endings with only a tinge of irony in Jaques' withdrawal from the feast. As You Like It is at the center of celebrational comedies in Shakespeare.
The final nod to comic closure is Rosalind's epilogue. Remember that female roles were played by males on Shakespeare's stage, and hear the text accordingly.
Journal Notes.
Please use the following prompts for your journal. Add your own if you like, and send them to me before class. They may suggest ideas for your students.
There are four sets of lovers in the play. What kinds of love do they suggest?
Jacques and Touchstone are both philosophers of a sort. Compare and contrast them.
Rosalind controls part of the action, but seems helpless at times. How do these qualities express her character?
What is the nature of the Green World?
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