Among the 5 Shakespeare plays I had read before last year, As You Like It was one that I chose to read myself rather than get assigned in class. I was going to save the rereading till later, but it seems like a good choice now after The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
1/ Shakespeare is clearly fascinated by the kind of hate that seems to have no reason.
“OLIVER […] I hope I shall see an end of him; for my soul, yet I know not why, hates nothing more than he…”
(Act 1 scene 1)
Oliver is talking about his own brother Orlando. It’s not really without reason though—it is envy, and even though he keeps Orlando at home without an education and treats him like a servant, Orlando is still more popular and that makes Oliver hate him more. However, his change near the end of the play is not (wholly) unconvincing.
2/ Why does Shakespeare have 2 characters named Jaques in the same play—a discontented lord in the Forest of Arden (“All the world’s a stage”), and a brother of Oliver and Orlando? What’s the significance?
Two things should be noted: firstly, the character of the bitter, discontented lord is Shakespeare’s creation and not in Thomas Lodge’s Rosalynde. The name Jaques is close to “jars”.
“DUKE SENIOR If he, compact of jars, grow musical,
We shall have shortly discord in the spheres…”
(Act 2 scene 7)
(compact of jars: made up of discord)
Secondly, Lodge’s Rosalynde does have a middle brother, and I’ve read that he’s more developed and more important in the story than Shakespeare’s character, but he isn’t called Jaques. Clearly, Shakespeare wants to link the two characters together, but why?
3/ When talking about the actors in Shakespeare’s comedy, Jonathan Bate says:
“Cooke and Tooley were there, with several other apprentices, including one “Ned,” […]. Little is known about the characteristics of the leading apprentices, who seem to have been Tooley and Cooke. It may perhaps be inferred that one was a lot taller than the other, since Shakespeare often wrote for a pair of female friends, one tall and fair, the other short and dark (Helena and Hermia, Rosalind and Celia, Beatrice and Hero).” (Soul of the Age, ch.21)
I do remember that Helena is taller than Hermia (“Though she be little, she is fierce”), and Beatrice is taller than Hero (Benedick says Hero is “too low for a high praise” and “too little for a great praise”). In As You Like It, there seems to be a mistake at the beginning of the play when Le Beau talks about the cousins, because Rosalind is clearly the taller one—later on, she dresses up as a man because she’s “more than common tall”, and Celia is described as “low”.
4/ See my blog post about Jonathan Bate’s analysis of counter-voices in As You Like It and in Shakespeare in general.
Quite early on in the play, when we’re introduced to Duke Senior and his talk about the sweet life in the Forest of Arden, quite immediately after, Shakespeare brings in Jaques’s perspective even though he’s not even present in the scene:
“FIRST LORD […] Thus most invectively he pierceth through
The body of the country, city, court,
Yea, and of this our life, swearing that we
Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and what’s worse,
To fright the animals and to kill them up
In their assigned and native dwelling place.”
(Act 2 scene 1)
I must thank Himadri (Argumentative Old Git) for pointing out the parallels between this play and The Tempest: an exiled duke takes over a remote and wild place, away from court, and makes it his new dukedom; and Jaques, like Caliban in The Tempest, pointedly asks what right the duke has over the forest.
However, if we cannot know what Antonio is like as a duke in The Tempest, in As You Like It, Shakespeare lets us see what Duke Frederick is like—he’s a tyrant.
To go back to Jaques, I don’t see him as an animal rights sympathiser. To me, he likes wrongfooting people and being contrary. In the end, he alone refuses to join in the celebration.
5/ As You Like It is one of the most popular of Shakespeare’s plays and it’s not hard to see why (even if I myself don’t include it in my top 10, generally preferring the darker plays).
“JAQUES I thank you for your company; but, good faith, I had as lief have been myself alone.
ORLANDO And so had I; but yet for fashion sake I thank you too for your society.
JAQUES God b’ wi’ you; let’s meet as little as we can.”
(Act 3 scene 2)
Hahahaha. Whatever you think about Jaques—whether or not you like him—he is funny.
“JAQUES Rosalind is your love’s name?
ORLANDO Yes, just.
JAQUES I do not like her name.
ORLANDO There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened.”
(ibid.)
Must save that for future use.
I forgot how witty Orlando was.
“JAQUES By my troth, I was seeking for a fool when I found you.
ORLANDO He is drowned in the brook. Look but in and you shall see him.”
(ibid.)
Hahahahaha. He loses to Rosalind though. Whereas Benedick and Beatrice are a perfect match, Rosalind is much wittier and more intelligent than Orlando.
It’s impossible not to like Rosalind.
“ROSALIND They say you are a melancholy fellow.
JAQUES I am so; I do love it better than laughing.
ROSALIND Those that are in extremity of either are abominable fellows, and betray themselves to every modern censure worse than drunkards.”
(Act 4 scene 1)
Jane Austen would have loved that exchange, as she writes in Persuasion: “like all other qualities of the mind, it should have its proportions and limits” (Ch.12). But it’s not only Persuasion, all of her novels advocate balance: between sense and sensibility, between emotional display and restraint, between pride and humility, between vivacity and quiet introspection, between openness and reservedness, between a persuadable temper and a resolute character, and so on. Rosalind too seems to like balance.
“ROSALIND […] Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.”
(Act 4 scene 1)
As Ganymede, she mocks affectations of love, though she chides Phebe for mocking Silvius’s excessiveness.
“ROSALIND […] 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…”
(ibid.)
Rosalind is playing a role, though we can see that she has no illusions about love and marriage. This is why she’s the most beloved of Shakespeare’s female characters: she’s very much in love without losing her head; and has no illusions without becoming cynical.
Tony Tanner says:
“Her disguise affords her detachment, even while her engaged feelings ensure her involvement; so that she can comment ironically, wisely, angrily (to Phebe), wryly, sadly, happily on all the lovers, including herself. She can look at love from every angle, so that her vision and comprehension is much wider and more inclusive than the partial attitudes displayed by goatish Touchstone and soppy Silvius.” (Introduction)
I agree. And Rosalind is delightful. If I have to name the most charming and endearing female characters in fiction, I would mention Rosalind, Beatrice, Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice), Natasha Rostova (War and Peace), and Shi Xiangyun (Hong lou meng).
To me, more interesting is the development of the female lead in Shakespeare’s comedies: Rosalind seems to be a combination of Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing and Rosaline from Love’s Labour’s Lost—she has the wit of both; like Beatrice, she is vivacious and sharp-tongued; like Rosaline educating Berowne, she educates Orlando. If Rosalind disguises herself as a man, so does Viola later in Twelfth Night, and Viola also has her intelligence and sensitivity, but she has issues (how else do you explain Viola’s love for Orsino, and her behaviour even after he threatens to kill her?). In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare also goes further in his exploration of gender and love: not only does Olivia fall in love with Viola in male disguise, the same way Phebe in As You Like It falls for Rosalind disguised as Ganymede, Orsino also develops feelings for Cesario and continues calling her Cesario and boy after she reveals herself to be Viola.
Of course, one may argue that there’s some of it in As You Like It.
“PHEBE If this be so, why blame you me to love you?
SILVIUS If this be so, why blame you me to love you?
ORLANDO If this be so, why blame you me to love you?
ROSALIND Why do you speak too, “Why blame you me to love you?”
ORLANDO To her that is not here, nor doth not hear.”
(Act 5 scene 2)
This could be Shakespeare’s joke with the audience, but Orlando does seem to like Rosalind as Ganymede, though he pretends it’s still the role-playing game. But Shakespeare goes further in Twelfth Night: unlike Orlando, Orsino never sees Viola in women’s clothes for the entire play.
6/ Tony Tanner says:
“At the time Shakespeare wrote this play, there was something of a vogue for pastoral and woodland (Robin Hood) plays, and Shakespeare’s contribution is an unparalleled exploration of the genre of pastoral. He leads his characters into a curiously suspended, time-out-of-time, pastoral moment or interlude, and then sets about exposing, testing, mocking, celebrating, elaborating pastoral’s conventions, assumptions, and pretensions—in the process, not only laying bare its manifest limitations, but also revealing new possibilities in its artifice—it’s obvious artifice.” (Introduction)
On the one hand, Shakespeare makes fun of the idealisation and romanticisation of country life (himself being a country boy), partly through the counter-voices of Jaques and Touchstone, and partly through the country characters, such as Corin.
“CORIN […] But I am shepherd to another man
And do not shear the fleeces that I graze.
My master is of churlish disposition
And little recks to find the way to heaven
By doing deeds of hospitality…”
(Act 2 scene 4)
Life isn’t all sweet on the countryside.
On the other hand, Shakespeare “[reveals] new possibilities in its artifice”, as Tony Tanner says, and he turns the forest into an unreal place, almost like the woods in A Midsummer Night’s Dream—just without fairies. There is evil at the beginning of the play, but by the end, it has evaporated away, thanks to the forest.
Comparing As You Like It and Thomas Lodge’s Rosalynde, Tony Tanner says that Shakespeare drains all violence from his source. Orlando is very different from Lodge’s character, and the ending is also changed.
On my rereading, I still find As You Like It an enjoyable play but don’t like it as much as many other Shakespeare plays—among the comedies, I prefer Twelfth Night or A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for example. The best thing about the play is, as everyone would say, Rosalind. She is wonderful.
I agree with your analysis, but what's odd is that this play has some of the most "staying power" with me. I still can't go to a wedding without thinking to myself of the Fool's quip that he wishes to be married "badly" thus making it easier to get divorced. Little things like that, over time, have I guess raised this play in my own personal ranking.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I understand it's personal. The plays that I would name as my favourites are the ones that I love the most, and they're also always at the back of my mind.
DeleteIf you talk to someone who hates As You Like It (not me) and have to explain why you like it, what would you say?
I would say that the play does a very nice job with contrasts, and that those contrasts give the play (perhaps) some of its staying power for me. There is the obvious contrast between the rotten court with the "pure" forest, but then Shakespeare further complicates this by having Jacques point out that even the idyllic escape is marred by cruelty to animals, etc. This duality seems evident throughout the play. If a reader gets "taken in" by the love story between Orlando and Rosalind, then there is always Touchstone's example to bring them back down to earth. To bring this back to the contemporary wedding example, I feel like the platitudes that you hear during the wedding ceremeony can vaguelly recall Rosalind and Orlando's loveplay (though obviously on a much lower register), but then I like that Shakespeare puts into the back of my head the notion that there's a chance the seemingly happy couple you see getting married will be "joined badly" a la Touchstone. It provides a healthy dose -- rather than overbearing -- of reality and cynicism.
DeleteThe other things I like about the play are probably more obvious --- the wordplay is excellent without being too knotty, and (as you note) Rosalind is one of Shakespeare's greatest creations. I found Orlando to be a bit of a preening bore, but Rosalind is simply amazing.
I don't like Touchstone that much. His feeling for Audrey is just physical, and I don't really like the stuff he says about her or to her.
DeleteOrlando is more interesting than I remembered, but yeah, next to Rosalind, he does seem simple and straightforward.
You should read Tony Tanner's essay.
As You Like It highlights for me a quality in Shakespeare that is paralleled in Trollope (whom you still must read) -- that is, the female characters are not merely deep and multidimensional, but they are also often far more impressive than the men with whom they are in love. As you point out, Orlando is witty, and he is good and he is heroic and brave -- but how much more witty, heroic and brave is Rosalind. The most extreme example of this in Shakespeare is All's Well That Ends Well, where it is difficult to understand what Helena sees in Bertram. As You Like It is not as extreme, since it is not hard to see what Rosalind loves in Orlando.
ReplyDeleteI've always loved this play -- definitely in my top 10. For one thing, it has personal connotations for me. I very much enjoyed the BBC Helen Mirren version from the late 1970s when I was younger. It is just so joyful, full of wit and fun, with such deep and beautiful ideas. "All the world's a stage," "Sweet are the uses of adversity..." The lightness of the play is not 100% (it never is in Shakespeare), but this one comes close. The minute anyone enters the forest, they are safe, protected, free of want, anxiety. The forest is not magic, but it is enchanted. No play has this feeling.
"the female characters are not merely deep and multidimensional, but they are also often far more impressive".
DeleteThis is also true for Hong lou meng: the female characters are more intelligent and lovable than the male characters. I think Cao Xueqin's characters aren't as deep and complex as Shakespeare's or Tolstoy's characters, but there's a wide range of characters from all groups of people in society, and they're all individualised and full of life.
I don't like Helena. She and Portia are admittedly intelligent, but I dislike them. Rosalind however is lovable.
"The minute anyone enters the forest, they are safe, protected, free of want, anxiety. The forest is not magic, but it is enchanted. No play has this feeling."
I guess A Midsummer Night's Dream doesn't count because there are fairies?
For whatever reason, I just feel closer to the darker plays hahaha.
The forest in A Midsummer Night's Dream is full of mischief and complications, though of a humorous rather than a dangerous nature. Of course, the forest of Arden DOES ostensibly contain dangers in the form of at least one lion (!) and a poisonous snake -- but nothing a noble brother can't easily defeat if he puts his mind to it, at the cost of a fairly minor arm wound.
DeleteYeah.
DeleteBy the way, do you know any good production of A Midsummer Night's Dream that is relatively easy to find? I somehow imagine it's better read than seen, but I could be wrong.
From childhood, I loved the BBC one from 1981 or so, also with Helen Mirren (Titania). Very funny, well acted, nicely done. Downside is it has a lot of lines cut. But that would be my go-to, even so.
DeleteOh, I just didn't like Helen Mirren that much as Imogen. I mean she's all right.
DeleteTwelfth Night is my favorite Shakespeare comedy, and As You Like It runs close second. They are as different as can be, but I wouldn't call either one "dark." Not just because that word is bandied about too much. The various menacings in Twelfth Night don't make it dark and dreadful; they have about the level of reality as those in the Chuck Jones cartoons (which also have characters driven crazy, carried off in straitjackets, and busted noggins complete with bandage).
ReplyDeleteNo, Baceseras did not say Twelfth Night is like Bugs Bunny. But that aspect I mentioned is comparable.
Make a deal with you: I'll read the Tony Tanner essays if you'll watch the 1930s As You Like It, directed by Paul Czinner, with Elisabeth Bergner as Rosalinde, and Olivier as Orlando. How charming is the film? as charming as the play when you read it. (You really get the better of this deal.)
I strongly disagree. That is a simplistic view of Twelfth Night.
DeleteI've written about it here:
https://thelittlewhiteattic.blogspot.com/2021/10/twelfth-night-revisited.html
And here:
https://thelittlewhiteattic.blogspot.com/2022/02/twelfth-night-kenneth-branagh-vs-trevor.html
The play is dated around the time of Hamlet and at this point, Shakespeare's vision visibly darkened. You are doing the play injustice to ignore all the dark elements in the play.
All right, now I'm going to write a more proper comment about why Twelfth Night is a dark play.
Delete1/ In As You Like It, there is evil at the beginning of the play, but by the end, it has all evaporated away, the bad characters are converted by the Forest. That isn't the case in Twelfth Night.
2/ In Twelfth Night, there is a sense of fun at the beginning, when they play a prank on Malvolio. But later on, even Feste realises they have gone too far and agrees to give Malvolio's letter to Olivia, and refuses to let Fabian see it.
Fabian and Feste both confess to their part in the "prank" on Malvolio, Olivia says he's "most notoriously abused". All these details exist in the play. Malvolio also says he will take revenge on the whole pack of them, and he's the discordant note in the seemingly happy ending of the play. That too is in the play.
3/ There are other dark elements. For example, when Sir Andrew Aguecheek offers to help Sir Toby, Sir Toby throws insults at him for no reason. Do you ignore that too? Sir Andrew Aguecheek is also alone at the end of the play, he doesn't get a happy ending.
Earlier, Shakespeare gives him the sad line "I was adored once too". Andrew Aguecheek is a simpleton, but he has feelings, Shakespeare gives him feelings and depth.
Or if you look at the so-called happy couples. Orsino threatens to kill Viola because of Olivia, and Viola happily follows. Practically speaking, there's no plot reason for Shakespeare to write those lines, but he does, so there must be a reason. Do you ignore that too?
We shouldn't assume that Shakespeare didn't know that was disturbing. We can see his ideas about love and happy couples from the other plays.
4/ Unlike many other comedies, Twelfth Night ends with a sad song, rather than a celebration. Do you ignore that too?
5/ Not all of Shakespeare's comedies end on a happy note (as people say). Love's Labour's Lost for example doesn't. So we can't assume that all the plays called comedies are happy.
My point is, all these dark elements are present in the play. There is a dark, cruel undercurrent. Ignoring them and seeing Twelfth Night as a happy play, comparing the treatment of Malvolio is jokes in cartoons, is doing the play a great disservice.
I could show you better what I mean by mounting my production of "Twelfth Night"; until then, permit my observation:
Delete"All these dark elements" are as guests in the kingdom of the Comic Spirit. They are allowed the perfect liberty of guests, but Comedy still reigns here, and their mal-pranks end up serving the Comic Spirit's turn.
Would you call "King Lear" a light play? No, never, despite its being full of jokes verbal and practical. Shakespeare's "light" elements don't turn a tragedy light, because they are as guests in the realm of the Tragic Spirit, with full liberty -- but they do not reign. In the Kingdom of Tragedy, Comedy's perfect and undisputed liberty still subserves the ends of the Tragic Spirit.
That's unconvincing.
DeleteThe jokes in King Lear aren't light. They are dark jokes, about humanity, or the cruelty of the daughters, or the foolishness of Lear, and so on. Your argument therefore doesn't make sense.
You claim that the dark elements in Twelfth Night don't reign, based on what? And if that's the case, why does the play end with a sad song instead of celebration and happiness?
The production that is closest to my interpretation of the play is Kenneth Branagh's. I have seen, for example, the Globe production, which performs it as broad comedy. That's an unsatisfying and shallow approach.
Twelfth Night is undeniably a comedy, and it is, I think, a matter of interpretation on whether the comedy is dark, or is relatively unclouded. Certainly, the list given by Di of darker elements in the play needs to be considered carefully; the question is whether these discords are strong enough to undermine, at least to some extent, the major key tonality that we normally expect from comedy. My own interpretation is that it does.
DeleteThere are discordant notes in all Shakespeare comedies but here, they seem to me far more prominent than in any of the earlier comedies. In "As You Like It", say, all violence, all threats of violence, all hatred, all hostilities, evaporate as soon as we enter the forest: Rosalind dominates the final pages, and it all ends with a cheerful dance; Rosalind herself speaks the epilogue. At the end of Twelfth Night, in sharp contrast, Viola is conspicuously silent, and, far from a merry dance, we end with a sad song (the refrain of which re-appears in the storm scene of King Lear). In As You Like It, teh character who doesn't fit in, Jaques, absents himself voluntarily from the harmony at the end, without rancour; in Twelfth Night, once again in sharp contrast, Andrew Aguecheek is cruelly rejected, and Malvolio departs humiliated and furious. The darker notes in Twelfth Night seem to me very powerful indeed, especially so in the final scene, where we may expect a resolution; and Shakespeare has chosen to accentuate these minor key elements to such an extent in this very resolution, that I don't know it's possible to downplay them without doing the play a grave injustice.
Unconvincing, maybe because you're defending Shakespeare from an onslaught of vulgarisation (moi), and you'll stick to your guns. Or if not vulgarisation, at least diminishment. Many people hold comedy in lower esteem than tragedy, and "light" work lower than "dark." You seem to lean that way. I don't agree, but argument is futile; our respective positions are rooted in sensibility, not reason -- a matter of taste.
ReplyDeleteNot all the jokes in Lear are dire; there's a lot of plain old comic raillery, mostly around Kent -- when the polished courtier shaves his beard and his Id comes out: tripping the surly servitor (the "footballer" line is a surefire laugh unless the director stifles it); spanking Osric with the flat side of his sword while roaring taunts and insults; the stychomythic repartee when Lear finds him in the stocks -- all these and more are from the comedy kit-bag, that is, they are "light." And yet King Lear remains a tragedy, as I'm sure you'll agree.
Now tell me, why do supposed "dark elements" darken a comedy, when "light elements" don't lighten a tragedy. The failure of reciprocity appears to me to be a flaw in your position.
"our respective positions are rooted in sensibility, not reason -- a matter of taste."
DeleteThat is not the case. Argument now is futile because I have laid out my arguments and refuted your point, whereas you've only made assertions and offered no arguments.
You have not responded to a single point made by me, or by Himadri. All you said, over and over again, was that the dark elements did not reign- based on what? I asked, you didn't answer.
When you ignore the dark elements in Twelfth Night, you're downplaying the humiliation of Malvolio, the rejection of Andrew Aguecheek, the cruelty of Sir Toby, the problematic aspect of Orsino's relationship with Viola, as well as the sad song with which the play ends. You gain nothing by downplaying all these things; instead, you lose a lot.
"Now tell me, why do supposed "dark elements" darken a comedy, when "light elements" don't lighten a tragedy. The failure of reciprocity appears to me to be a flaw in your position."
The jokes in King Lear don't lighten up the tragedy because the vision of the play is tragic, because the jokes don't change the fact that the characters in it are cruel, daughters abandon father, brother betrays brother, son turns against father, servant turns against master... The jokes don't make the betrayal or the blinding or the murder not happen.
The dark elements in Twelfth Night, in contrast, (should) make you question the seeming happiness in the play. And even if everyone else were happy (which I don't think is the case), that doesn't mean that the humiliation of Malvolio is negligible.
But I've said enough, I've made my points.
Himadri: "At the end of Twelfth Night ... Viola is conspicuously silent, and, far from a merry dance, we end with a sad song...."
ReplyDeleteA sweet sad song, and very suitable for the coming wedding of Orsino, who we know likes "a dying fall." And for all we know Viola may be conspicuously dancing her merry hat off. All we have are reading editions of the plays, without stage direction. They didn't give how-to tips in those days; the acting companies kept their secrets. But we shouldn't assume where no action is specified no action was performed.
As for the cruel rejection of Andrew Aguecheek, the humiliation and fury of Malvolio -- their sorrows evoke no more tears from me than Elmer Fudd cwuelly pwevented from putting food on the table by a wascally wabbit wefusing to be shotgunned ... or the humiliation and fury of Yosemite Sam dragged at high speed over the desert horizon by a mule fed on TNT. Granted, Looney Toons and Merry Melodies, good as they are, are not as good as Twelfth Night. But they share a lineage.
I haven't seen Branagh's production. I cringe at the present-day Globe's idea of broad comedy*. Not what I mean at all.
*Their idea of high seriousness isn't any better.
I'm going to let Himadri respond to this.
Delete"As for the cruel rejection of Andrew Aguecheek, the humiliation and fury of Malvolio -- their sorrows evoke no more tears from me..."
I'm very curious about how you're going to respond to the Kenneth Branagh production.
As for the 1936 As You Like It, I have to look for it. On Youtube, the quality is 480p, which is terrible. The one I have easy access to is the BBC production with Helen Mirren, so I'm going to watch that one first.
I'm excited that I'm going to see Branagh's Belfast this week. He has never struck me as a born filmmaker, but after plugging away at it for so long he has acquired the skills of the profession; and this time he's working on a story that's personal to him, so yes, I'm excited, this is when lightning can strike. Fingers crossed. And perhaps next week, Twelfth Night. So much to see!
ReplyDeleteI would have thought the BFI offered the '36 As You Like It on DVD or streaming service, or both. Well, but good luck.
I like your daffodil theme. Spring is going retrograde here.
I thought I had only seen 2 of his things, but checked and he also directed Thor (what?), so 3.
DeleteHis Twelfth Night is a filmed play rather than a film though.
I'm going to check BFI. I rarely buy DVDs or books though, because of space and house moving, so...
Where do you live?
I got bored with Blogger themes so used my own photo hahaha.
Now I've seen Belfast, and if it isn't a bolt of lightning it is still a very good film, with more good acting in more roles than any other film of the current year. Branagh has done himself proud. So I'm up for Twelfth Night tomorrow or the next day.
ReplyDeleteWhere do I live? This is the Land of Cleves, Clevelandohiou.s.a., where Spring has at last pointed its feet in the right direction and is on the move. Hyacinths bubbling open in the garden this morning! Hip-hip....
Oh nice. I saw some clips of his Death on the Nile and it looked dreadful hahaha.
DeleteI like hyacinths, especially the blue ones.