Commentary on Literary Devices in As You Like It Essay

For the plot of As You Like It, Shakespeare himself had only to go to the local theatre. Thomas Lodges prose romance Rosalynde was popular in the Elizabethan theatres beginning in 1590 and was a wonderful tale, full of bloody wrestling matches and swashbuckling rescues, of nasty outlaws and the violent deaths of wicked villains. In contrast, when Shakespeares version opened in 1599, he had turned Lodges strong, masculine story into a fairy tale. Yet Shakespeares comic version touches us more deeply because of its elements of reality.

Lodges story follows the usual pastoral conventions popular at the time, but Shakespeare includes ironic twists which make the characters more immediate to our own experience. The characters in As You Like It move from the complications of a corrupt court to the surrounding forest in search of freedom. In the forest, they find out who they really are; most are refined in the struggle, but a few are not.

The forest itself is an ideal site for the struggle toward fulfillment. We are told at the beginning of the action that those who are fleeing into the woods from Duke Fredericks tyranny think of the Forest of Arden (probably the woods in which Shakespeare grew up and named for Shakespeares mother, Mary Arden) as a place where they can fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world (1.1.118 19). The displaced Duke Senior is a romantic Robin Hood figure, but he acknowledges that he and his band must eventually meet icy winter winds with a smile: Sweet are the uses of adversity (2.1.12), he says. It pains him that deer must be killed for him and his friends to survive, but he intends to endure in the forest until order can be restored in the royal court.

The other main characters are as non-violent as he. In fact, one primary difference in Shakespeares version is that he took out the violence. The result is that Rosalind becomes the central character of the play. She is not just a passive Renaissance maiden, waiting to be saved by her swashbuckling suitor. Not only does she take charge of her own wooing, but she is the fulcrum of the action. It is through her understanding and intercession that the complications are resolved. She is caught up in the romance of Orlandos very bad poetry, while also acknowledging that men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love (4.1.106 8). She thoroughly enjoys dressing up as Ganymede to enjoy Orlandos company, but uses her male disguise to teach him some important qualities of love. Thus, violent action is replaced by realistic introspection. Orlando doesnt battle his brother with a sword, as Rosader does in Lodges version, but wins him over by saving his life. First, however, Orlando debates with himself whether he should risk his own life to do so.

To add to the irony of the play, Shakespeare invents two characters who do not appear at all in Lodges version: Touchstone and Jaques. A combination of romantic and realistic, these two fools add to an understanding of the main characters. Jaques, Monsieur Melancholy, is so gloomy as to be runny most of the time. However, his best known speech, The Seven Ages of Man, which begins all the worlds a stage, ends with man in second childishness, and mere oblivion, / sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing (2.7.139 166). The audience, often shaken with the reality of Jaquess vision, sometimes misses the next contrast. The next person on stage is ancient Adam, servant to Orlando. His presence refutes everything Jaques has just said; Adam is not childish and is not just a burden. He is, instead, loyal and true, and, rather than going into mere oblivion, he will be remembered forever for his virtues. Thus the exaggeration of melancholy in Jaques is refuted by the balance of virtuous reality. Jaquess pessimism is finally beaten by joyous Rosalind. When he asserts that tis good to be sad and say nothing, she responds, why then tis good to be a post (4.1.8 9). She chooses deliberate happiness over superficial stoicism.

The melancholy fool Jaques is often compared to Touchstone, the wise fool. Touchstones wit seems light and self-effacing, yet is often biting. A touchstone is a criterion (used in the Renaissance as a test for the purity of gold and silver). As a function in the play, Touchstone becomes a standard of measure for the foolishness of the other characters. He draws humor by looking at the absurdities of the games people play. The irony is that he himself is the most ridiculous character in this work. He who considers himself the most wise, marries Audrey, the goatherd, who in her stupidity is certainly the most innocent. When Touchstone wants more in his wife, he wishes she were poetical. Audrey says, I do not know what poetical is. Is it honest in deed and word? Is it a true thing? He laments, No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most feigning, and lovers are given to poetry (3.3.17 20). His comment underscores the Aristotelian argument for poetry not as a mirror of truth, but of the ideal. By this measure, poetry is in its nature not realistic, but romantic. It gives us a view of what life should be, not what it is. In moving this whole play from Lodges prose form into poetic prose, Shakespeare has opened this work to a discussion of the ideal.

Because of this emphasis on ideas, As You Like It is sometimes criticized as having little dramatic tension. By the very nature of Shakespearean comedies, we know in advance that order will be restored, that the wicked will be punished, and that marriages will follow. Certainly the primary intention is to entertain (this play contains more songs than any other Shakespearean play). Yet each character has met and conquered adversity, or has become inured to it. The wise fool has married, but not well; the melancholy fool has joined the wicked duke in a religious retreat. The wicked brother has been conquered by gratitude and by love for the dukes daughter. (We know the love is genuine because Celia had been disguised as a simple shepherdess.) Order is restored through the reinstatement of Duke Senior, and all can leave the romance of the forest to return to an improved court.