And Thereby Hangs a Tale
by Thomas Canfield, Dramaturg
Considered to be one of Shakespeare’s mature comedies, As You Like It is also one of his most beloved crowd-pleasers. The central action of the play unfolds in a woodland realm inhabited by shepherds and shepherdesses, a setting that places it in the pastoral tradition. Love, as in all of Shakespeare’s comedies, is the play’s major theme, but As You Like It explores various types of love to the greatest extent. Rosalind, its principal character, is also Shakespeare’s most prominent heroine; as the play’s driving figure and a manipulator of love relationships, she speaks more lines than any other female character in all of his works.
In contrast to many of Shakespeare’s comedies, As You Like It does not feature an elaborate or intricate plot. Instead, it is a character-driven play constructed around opposing and complementary figures, many of which are arranged in pairings or symmetrical groupings. The story begins at the court of the usurping Duke Frederick, a conniving and suspicious ruler who has driven the former sovereign, Duke Senior, his elder brother, into the Forest of Arden. Meanwhile, two other siblings, the mean-spirited Oliver and his younger brother Orlando, are also at odds. Learning of a plot to murder him, Orlando takes refuge in the countryside, but only after he has fallen hopelessly in love with Rosalind, the daughter of the exiled duke. When Duke Frederick banishes Rosalind from court, she and her cousin Celia, his daughter, also flee to the woods. Disguising themselves as brother and sister and adopting the names of Ganymede and Aliena, the two young women, accompanied by the court clown Touchstone, establish residence in a cottage on the edge of the forest and purchase a flock of sheep, tended by the rustics Corin and Silvius.
In practice, their exile offers the courtiers a reprieve rather than a punishment. Transplanted to the bucolic environs of the forest and liberated from the dark plots and intrigue that thrive in the artificial world of the court, they enjoy an unburdened, fairy-tale existence that is free from any real hardship. Although suffering, violence, and danger do exist in the woods in the form of hunger, unpredictable weather, and wild animals, no one dies in the play and there is only minimal, offstage bloodshed. Surrounded by Mother Nature’s bounty, the courtiers discover “tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, / Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.” Against the unfettered backdrop of this counter-urban Utopia, the characters leisurely debate the relative merits of several subjects: court and country, youth and old age, inner virtue and the gifts of fortune, reality and romance, the active and contemplative life, and laughter and melancholy. The play’s humor stems from witty philosophy rather than low comedy.
Love takes on many guises in this play, and several of the characters are drawn from familiar stock types that Elizabethan audiences would have readily recognized. As the romantic, courtly lover, Orlando carves Rosalind’s name into the bark of the trees in the forest and hangs poorly-penned verses of love from their branches. When Orlando encounters Rosalind disguised as Ganymede, the “young man” convinces Orlando to submit to therapy for his lovelorn state: Orlando must pretend that Ganymede is Rosalind and woo the youth. As representatives of unrequited love, Silvius and Phebe typify the adoring, rejected swain and the scornful shepherdess. Touchstone, seeking to satisfy his lustful desire, employs worldly wit to dispatch William, a rustic bumpkin, so that he may freely woo Audrey, a simple country wench. Finally, Celia and Oliver fall hastily in love at the play’s conclusion after Orlando saves Oliver’s life and the brothers are united. Other character types include Adam, the faithful, elderly family retainer and Jacques, the melancholy, world-weary traveler who weeps over a dying stag.
This is a theatrical play in many ways, as shown in Duke Senior’s comparison of the world to a “wide and universal theatre,” and Jacques’ famous speech beginning with, “All the world’s a stage / And all the men and women are merely players.” In the Epilogue, the actor playing Rosalind steps out of character and directly addresses the audience on the subject of love, dissolving the boundaries between fantasy and reality. When Rosalind encounters her father in the forest, we are supposed to believe that even he cannot see through her disguise. The theatrical irony of her deception would not have been lost on Shakespeare’s original audience: a male actor would have been playing the role of a female character who masquerades as a male, but who then pretends to be a female. A treat for the visual and aural senses, As You Like It also includes a spectacular wrestling match, several songs, and a quadruple wedding celebration overseen by Hymen, the classical god of marriage.
A master manipulator throughout the play, Rosalind, like a theatre director, is instrumental in orchestrating its uncomplicated resolution in which everything falls conveniently into place. After wedding Celia, Oliver plans to bequeath the family estate to Orlando and spend the remainder of his life as a humble shepherd. Duke Frederick also abandons his former tyrannical nature; after setting out to capture his elder brother in the forest, he undergoes an abrupt religious conversion and restores Duke Senior to his rightful throne. In the end, as the title suggests, As You Like It is intended to suit all tastes and can be whatever one wants it to be. Shakespeare gives his characters the liberty to seek out their own happiness and to obtain what they truly desire, while also allowing individual audience members to choose from various attitudes towards love, whether romantic, optimistic, or cynical.
Considered to be one of Shakespeare’s mature comedies, As You Like It is also one of his most beloved crowd-pleasers. The central action of the play unfolds in a woodland realm inhabited by shepherds and shepherdesses, a setting that places it in the pastoral tradition. Love, as in all of Shakespeare’s comedies, is the play’s major theme, but As You Like It explores various types of love to the greatest extent. Rosalind, its principal character, is also Shakespeare’s most prominent heroine; as the play’s driving figure and a manipulator of love relationships, she speaks more lines than any other female character in all of his works.
In contrast to many of Shakespeare’s comedies, As You Like It does not feature an elaborate or intricate plot. Instead, it is a character-driven play constructed around opposing and complementary figures, many of which are arranged in pairings or symmetrical groupings. The story begins at the court of the usurping Duke Frederick, a conniving and suspicious ruler who has driven the former sovereign, Duke Senior, his elder brother, into the Forest of Arden. Meanwhile, two other siblings, the mean-spirited Oliver and his younger brother Orlando, are also at odds. Learning of a plot to murder him, Orlando takes refuge in the countryside, but only after he has fallen hopelessly in love with Rosalind, the daughter of the exiled duke. When Duke Frederick banishes Rosalind from court, she and her cousin Celia, his daughter, also flee to the woods. Disguising themselves as brother and sister and adopting the names of Ganymede and Aliena, the two young women, accompanied by the court clown Touchstone, establish residence in a cottage on the edge of the forest and purchase a flock of sheep, tended by the rustics Corin and Silvius.
In practice, their exile offers the courtiers a reprieve rather than a punishment. Transplanted to the bucolic environs of the forest and liberated from the dark plots and intrigue that thrive in the artificial world of the court, they enjoy an unburdened, fairy-tale existence that is free from any real hardship. Although suffering, violence, and danger do exist in the woods in the form of hunger, unpredictable weather, and wild animals, no one dies in the play and there is only minimal, offstage bloodshed. Surrounded by Mother Nature’s bounty, the courtiers discover “tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, / Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.” Against the unfettered backdrop of this counter-urban Utopia, the characters leisurely debate the relative merits of several subjects: court and country, youth and old age, inner virtue and the gifts of fortune, reality and romance, the active and contemplative life, and laughter and melancholy. The play’s humor stems from witty philosophy rather than low comedy.
Love takes on many guises in this play, and several of the characters are drawn from familiar stock types that Elizabethan audiences would have readily recognized. As the romantic, courtly lover, Orlando carves Rosalind’s name into the bark of the trees in the forest and hangs poorly-penned verses of love from their branches. When Orlando encounters Rosalind disguised as Ganymede, the “young man” convinces Orlando to submit to therapy for his lovelorn state: Orlando must pretend that Ganymede is Rosalind and woo the youth. As representatives of unrequited love, Silvius and Phebe typify the adoring, rejected swain and the scornful shepherdess. Touchstone, seeking to satisfy his lustful desire, employs worldly wit to dispatch William, a rustic bumpkin, so that he may freely woo Audrey, a simple country wench. Finally, Celia and Oliver fall hastily in love at the play’s conclusion after Orlando saves Oliver’s life and the brothers are united. Other character types include Adam, the faithful, elderly family retainer and Jacques, the melancholy, world-weary traveler who weeps over a dying stag.
This is a theatrical play in many ways, as shown in Duke Senior’s comparison of the world to a “wide and universal theatre,” and Jacques’ famous speech beginning with, “All the world’s a stage / And all the men and women are merely players.” In the Epilogue, the actor playing Rosalind steps out of character and directly addresses the audience on the subject of love, dissolving the boundaries between fantasy and reality. When Rosalind encounters her father in the forest, we are supposed to believe that even he cannot see through her disguise. The theatrical irony of her deception would not have been lost on Shakespeare’s original audience: a male actor would have been playing the role of a female character who masquerades as a male, but who then pretends to be a female. A treat for the visual and aural senses, As You Like It also includes a spectacular wrestling match, several songs, and a quadruple wedding celebration overseen by Hymen, the classical god of marriage.
A master manipulator throughout the play, Rosalind, like a theatre director, is instrumental in orchestrating its uncomplicated resolution in which everything falls conveniently into place. After wedding Celia, Oliver plans to bequeath the family estate to Orlando and spend the remainder of his life as a humble shepherd. Duke Frederick also abandons his former tyrannical nature; after setting out to capture his elder brother in the forest, he undergoes an abrupt religious conversion and restores Duke Senior to his rightful throne. In the end, as the title suggests, As You Like It is intended to suit all tastes and can be whatever one wants it to be. Shakespeare gives his characters the liberty to seek out their own happiness and to obtain what they truly desire, while also allowing individual audience members to choose from various attitudes towards love, whether romantic, optimistic, or cynical.
