As You Like It

1
As You Like It

• Comedy, characters,
• structure, and themes

2
As You Like Ita romantic comedy

• Comedy
• Hero in everyday situations
• reveals foibles and follies of man
• Comedy ends in inclusion, marriage
• satiric

• Romance
• Hero on quest
• Hero leaves home
• Hero grows, works toward becoming full characters
• moralistic

3
As You Like ItMicro/macrocosm

• Disorder on political level
• Duke Frederick has ousted Duke Senior
• Law of Primogenitor overturned
• Disorder on family level
• A brother has banished his older brother
• Another brother has cheated his younger brother
  out of his inheritance
• a split between father and child
• physical separation
• emotional distance

4
As You Like Ittwo worlds

• Court
• place of corruption
• wrestling (of Charles) is sport for ladies
• Love is a game to pass the time

• Forest of Arden
• ideal, golden world
• wrestling (of lion) is necessary to save human
  life
• love provides lessons

5
As You Like ItFour Couples

• realistic
• Rosalind and Orlando
• romantic
• Celia and Oliver
• pastoral
• Silvius and Phebe
• sexual
• Touchstone and Audrey

6
As You Like ItPlot/subplot structure
main plot
1.1 1.2 1.3
3.2
4.1 4.3 5.2 5.4
Rosalind/Orlando
subplots
4.3 5.2 5.4
Celia/Oliver
4.3 5.2 5.4
3.4
3.5
2.4
Silvius/Phebe
5.2 5.4
3.3
Touchstone/Audrey
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As You Like ItFoiling

• Character foiling
• two Dukes, one men willing go with, one men fly
  from
• Duke Senior the idealist and Jaques the
  melancholy
• Touchstone as court fool, Jaques as fool in
  forest
• Similar scenes
• wrestling of Charles and of lion, 1.2 and 4.3
• fake marriages Touchstone/Audrey,
  Rosalind/Orlando

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As You Like It -- Act I
Scene 1 Orlando sad Charles and Oliver
Scene 3 Rosalind banished Celia plans trip to
Forest of Arden
Scene 2 Rosalind sad wrestling
9
As You Like It -- Act II
Scene 1 Duke Senior Sermons in Stone
Scene 3 Adams warns Orlando to flee
Scene 4 Rosalind and Celia arrive, see Corin
Scene 2 Duke Frederick sends for Oliver
Scene 5 Jaques melancholy
Scene 7 Duke Senior and Orlando All the
Worlds a Stage
Scene 6 Orlando to help Adam in forest
10
As You Like It -- Act III
Scene 1 Duke Frederick seizes Olivers lands
Scene 3 Touchstone and Audrey
Scene 2 Orlandos poems Corin/Touchstone Jaques/Or
lando Rosalind as Ganymede will teach Orlando
Scene 4 Rosalind and Celia
Scene 5 Silvius and Phebe
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As You Like It -- Act IV
Scene 1 Jaques Rosalind and Orlando Men have
died from time to time, but not for love
Scene 3 Rosalind and Celia w/ Silvius Oliver
tells of rescue by Orlando
Scene 2 Jaques
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As You Like It -- Act V
Scene 1 Touchstone and Audrey marriage
Scene 3 Touchstone and Audrey
Scene 4 Marriages Rosalind the Epiloque
Scene 2 Orlando and Oliver reconcile Rosalind
promised to solve all
13
As You Like Itthemes

• Comic and Satiric view vs. Romantic ideal
• Nature of love
• Nature vs. Nurture
• Nature vs. Fortune
• Responsibility of brothers to each other
• Melancholy
• Court vs. Nature

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As You Like ItRosalind as ideal character
Duke Senior romantic ideal
Jaques satiric melancholy
Rosalind romantic and satiric