AS YOU LIKE ITby William Shakespeare

(1599-1600)

Opening suggests a dark world, not a comedy

Begins at a corrupt and suspicious court

Two warring brothers, one is lovable (Orlando) and the other “altogether misprised” (Oliver)

Their enmnity is mirrored by the usurpation of Duke Senior by his brother Duke Frederick

The “good” brothers are banished to the forest

Shakespeare’s comedies often begin this way

Ultimately, we are guided to the play’s heroine ROSALIND

The play’s action concerns itself with ‘coupling’ (four couples are wed at the end of the play)

One of the happiest of comedies• Brothers are reconciled• Legitimacy and prosperity is restored• The evil convert• Each lover is appropriately matched

Significance of settingPlay’s action is set in the

Forest of Arden in Warwichshire

Shakespeare’s mother’s name was Arden

The play suggests both French and English characters and places…seemingly nowhere and everywhere

A magical place where anything can happen

Your If is the only peacemaker…

Rosalind invites Orlando to imagine his life IF he had not met “your very very Rosalind”

She poses and solves a complex set of riddles at the climax IF IF I CAN IF I COULD IF EVER I MARRY WOMAN IF EVER I SATISFIED MAN IF WHAT PLEASES YOU CONTENTS YOU

Villains are miraculously changed

Oliver tells Celia “Twas I. But ‘tis not I.”

Like Eden, Arden is not wholly safe

Arden is cold and people must hunt for food

Lions and snakes threaten sudden death

It is threatened with invasion from the usurping Duke

Setting is pastoral Except for Corin, nobody seems

to work All can find plenty of time to

sing, philosophize and fall in love

It is not, however, an alternative to civilization. It is “nature” as opposed to “culture”

Perhaps Shakespeare is parodying the pastoral excesses of writers like Philip Sidney in works such as ARCADIA (1590)

It is not simply a play, it is a play about how people write about love

Act One, The Wresling MatchA 19th century painting

Sources for the play Thomas Lodge wrote ROSALYNDE,

EUPHUES’ GOLDEN LEGACIE in 1590 and Shakespeare borrows freely from its characters and plot

He excises a bloody battle between the feuding dukes and replaces it with Frederick’s conversion and retirement

He invents the characters of Jacques, Touchstone and Audrey

John Lyly wrote EUPHUES, THE ANATOMY OF WIT (1579)

The previously mentioned ARCADIA (1590)

A musical worldPlay contains more songs

than any other Shakespeare play

Most famous is “It was a lover and his lass” (V.3)

The song was arranged and published by Thomas Morley in 1600

Lovers grow upRosalind and Orlando escape the

gloom, confinement and danger of court by escaping to the forest…and growing up

This requires Rosalind and Orlando; Celia and Oliver to move from the family they were born into to the family one starts and presides over “from one’s father to one’s child’s father” (1.3)

As with Ophelia (Hamlet), Cordelia (King Lear) and Desdemona (Othello), Rosalind’s relationship with her father is changed

Shakespeare’s GlobeTheatre Production, 2010

Celia and RosalindAs both separate from their

father’s; they also outgrow their friendship

The threat to marriage is not only Rosalind’s attachment to Celia, but also Orlando’s attachment to Ganymede (the homo-erotic theme described by some)

Further expressed by Rosalind taking on the identity of Ganymede (Jove’s cupbearer and “lover”)

Disguises Rosalind as Ganymede Celia “darkens” her face to be seen as

less “fair” Ganymede seems to relish being a man…

as a woman, she could not buy property, but as a man she buys a “cottage, pasture and flock”

Rosalind’s disguise seems to enhance her confidence while doing the opposite to Celia

Still Rosalind does woo Orlando, not girl to boy, but man to man

Perhaps these disguises are simply pragmatic since boys played the female roles in Elizabethan theatre

Four couplesRosalind and OrlandoMarriage offers a different kind of ending, as well as a different kind of beginning for four couples

Four couples

Celia and Oliver

Four couplesAudrey and Touchstone

Four couplesPhebe and Silvius

Marriage offers a different kind of ending, as well as a different kind of beginning, for each of the four couples

All the world’s a stage… Jacques speech from Act Two, scene 7 is

rightly one of the most famous in all of Shakespeare

Of the SEVEN AGES, only one really relates to the action of the play…

And then the loverSighing like furnace, with a woeful balladMade to his mistress’ eyebrow

Jacques (and Adam) help to put the marriages into perspective

First printed editionFolio edition, 1623Production was

entered into the Stationers Register by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men as one of four plays “to be staied” (withheld from publication)

On Film

As You Like It (2006)Directed by Kenneth Branagh

Brian Blessed Duke Senior & Duke Frederick

Bryce Dallas Howard RosalindDavid Oyelowo Orlando De BoysRichard Briers AdamPatrick Doyle AmiensRomola Garai CeliaAdrian Lester Oliver De BoysAlfred Molina TouchstoneKevin Kline JaquesJanet McTeer Audrey

1936 FilmDirector: Paul CzinnerWriters: William Shakespeare (play)

J.M. Barrie (treatment)Robert Cullen (scenario)Carl Mayer (adaptation)

Cast:Henry Ainley Exiled Duke Elisabeth Bergner Rosalind Felix Aylmer Duke Frederick Laurence Olivier Orlando Leon Quartermaine Jacques

As You Like It (1987 - BBC)Director: Basil Coleman Helen Mirren RosalindBrian Stirner OrlandoRichard Pasco JaquesAngharad Rees CeliaJames Bolam TouchstoneClive Francis OliverRichard Easton Duke FrederickTony Church Duke Senior

'As You Like It' at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (2010) 149 min Directed by Thea Sharrock Michael Benz Silvius

Philip Bird Duke SeniorSophie Duval AudreyNaomi FrederickRosalindBrendan Hughes Duke FrederickJack Laskey Orlando de BoysTrevor Martin AdamTim McMullan JacquesJamie Parker Oliver de BoysLaura Rogers CeliaDominic Rowan Touchstone