My Impression about "As You Like It"


It might be more difficult to think of a comedy than to think of a tradedy.
The hero of a tradedy, for example, King Lear whose haughtiness is broken by the stern realities of life, dies a pathetic death in his mental disorder caused by the conflict between his belief and the new realities of life.　That's enough for the audience to be satisfied with.
Nobody dies, however, in a comedy.
A comedy presents various kinds of foolish behavior of human beings in the various aspects of life, and, rousing the laughter and softening the audience's stiffness of mind, comes to a happy end.
A comedy makes us feel expanses of living, while a tradedy makes us feel some aspect of life spotlighted clearly.　So, it could be said that a tradedy comes into existence by the pursuit of the problem in some scene of a comedy.　But I must think of a comedy.
"As You Like It" is said to be one of the Shakespeare's greatest comedies. Such elements indispensable in a comedy are seen in it as dark or bright aspects of life, romantic scenes of young men and women, various scenes playing a joke or a sarcasm on a person, and satire on a social system.　The comedy presents us the beauty, the ugliness, the folly and the humor of human beings.
It is often said that the characteristic of this play is that it is written from many points of view.　 One action is showed, and the reaction of it comes next.　For example, a power struggle at court and persecution of younger brother by elder brother are showed first, and as reactions of them, come the friendship and the first gleam of love and the companionship beyond the relationship between master and servant among people in straits.　And the Forest of Arden is recollected as Robin Hood's Forest.　The Forest of Arden, however, is only a dreamland in comparison with old custom of painted pomp in the envious court.[K.1.3-4]　We must endure the stern realities of nature.　The vitality of a banished duke and the pastoral scenery are showed.　Amiens sings as follows:
　Under the greenwood tree,
　Who loves to lie with me,
　And turn his merry note
　Unto the sweet bird's throat:
Come hither, come hither, come hither.
　　　　　Here shall he see
　　　　　No enemy
But winter and rough weather.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　[K.5.1-8]
Such a pastoral world, however, is criticized by Jaques and Touchstone. .....
We can feel the comic atmosphere of "As You Like It" in the following song sung in the Forest of Arden which is not a dreamland but a forest in nature connected with a human society.
　　　Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
　　　Thou art not so unkind
　　　　　As man's ingratitude.
　　　Thy tooth is not keen,
　　　Because thou art not seen,
　　　　　Although thy breath be rude.
Hey-ho, sing hey-ho, unto the green holly,
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly;
　　　Then hey-ho, the holly,
　　　　　This life is most jolly.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　[K.7.175-184]
This atmosphere continues to the end.　Songs for wedding are sung merrily and four couples get married and the play closes.　But we might worry about William, for he was in love with Audrey, who got married with Touchstone.　 Jaques said cynically to them and didn't take part in the wedding ceremony.　It doesn't seem that Shakespeare presents the Forest of Arden as a dreamland.


I have been taking interest in Shakespeare's intention to have created the two characters who are not in the source,"Rosalynde" by Thomas Lodge.
It is said that the year of 1599 when this play was written was the turning point: from the active and optimistic atmosphere early in the Elizabethan age to the suffcating and pessimistic one in the age of JamesJ.　 We might feel each atmosphere in the Hamlet's words:
I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises: and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.....What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a god: the beauty of the world; the paragon of animals; and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　"Hamlet"[K.2.299-312]
I suppose that there must have been those that fear they hope, and know they fear as Orlando says.[N.4.4]　What was the pastoral world for Shakespeare who I suppose was fully sensitive to the change of the spirit of an age?　It is true that the pastoral world is wonderful enough to be sung as ... hey-ho, the holly, this life is most jolly, but Shakespeare must have felt something that froze such a bright atmosphere.　 That is why the dreamland, the Forest of Arden is criticized from an actual point of view by the two characters: Jaques who is a pessimist and sharpens his tongue and Touchstone who hath strange places crammed with observation, the which he vents in mangled forms.[K.7.40-2]
Pastoral romance is also criticized from an actual point of view.

Jaques doesn't believe marriage.　He makes a cynical remark: Get you to church, and have a good priest that can tell you what marriage is.　This fellow will but join you together as they join wainscot; then one of you will prove a shrunk panel and, like green timber, warp, warp.[L.3.76-80]　 As for Touchstone's paying court to Audrey, sexual desire seems to urge him to do so.
The following chat makes the audience in those days recollect a common saying that no beauty is without her unchastity:
Audrey　　　　Would you not have me honest?
Touchstone　No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favoured:
　　　　　　　　for honesty coupled to beauty is to have
　　　　　　　　honey a sauce to sugar.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　[L.3.25-8]
We can suppose the sexual manners in those days from several speeches about a horn, which was imagined growing at the forehead of a man if his wife is unchaste.　 We could think that Touchstone satirizes marriage in the following words though he will get married with Audrey:
I press in here, sir, amongst the rest of the country copulatives, to swear and to forswear, according as marriage binds and blood breaks.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　[N.4.53-6]
Touchstone and Jaques seem to have the dramatic function of revealing some aspects of the real life in those days.　But I think that we should pay attention to the Touchstone's words: Come, sweet Audrey, we must be married, or we must live in bawdry.[L.3.86-7]　I will read Touchstone's(Shakespeare's) real intention in the words.　And I think the very same words, if any, connect Touchstone to Rosalind.　Rosalind is also saying the similar words as Touchstone says:
Why, horns; which such as you are fain to be
beholding to your wives for.　But he comes armed in his
fortune, and prevents the slander of his wife.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　[M.1.53-5]
No, faith, die by attorney.　The poor world is
almost six thousand years, and in all this time there
was not any man died in his own person, videlicet, in a
love-cause.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　[M.1.85-8]
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　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.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　[M.1.135-8]
Rosalind's words tell us that pastoral romance is criticized severely from an actual point of view.　She says,"O, that woman that cannot make her fault her husband's occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, for she will breed it like a fool."[M.1.161-3]　This means that wife's unchastity is responsible not only for herself but also for her husband, and that a woman who doesn't have such a recognition is disqualified to breed her children.　This is the contents of modern romance.　 Married love consists in mutual obligation and understanding as if it were a bridge made of fragile glass.
As for the couple of Silvius and Phebe from the Rosalind's point of view, therefore, Phebe makes Silvius an instrument and love hath made him a tame snake.[M.3.68-71]　Rosalind criticizes him as follows: 'Tis such fools as you that makes the world full of ill-favoured children.　'Tis not her glass but you that flatters her.[L.5.52-4]
By the way, I hear that shepherds and shepherdesses are described as beautiful in traditional pastoral poems.　But Phebe is an ugly shepherdess in this play.
We might conclude that Shakespeare's pastoral romance, compared with a traditional one, has sweetness and an additional bitterness, that is to say, intellectual point of view.



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