Shakespeare and As You
Like It
Acting, Gender, Politics
Acting a Gender
Love in all its variety
What’s wrong in the world of the
play?
Great Chain of Being?
Respect for elders
Brotherly love
_________________?
_________________?
What does Oliver do against
Orlando?
What happens at the wrestling
match, outside of the ring?
What does Duke Frederick do?
Why?
What does Orlando do for Adam?
What does Celia do for
Rosalind? Why?
What are the physical differences between Celia (Aliena) and Rosalind
(Ganymede)?
What are the power differences?
What are the emotional/ psychological differences?
Essentially, Celia and Rosalind are playing at Pastoral (as did Marie Antoinette).
Is there any difference between what they do and what Marie Antoinette did?
Two Fools – Or more?
Are Touchstone and Jacques the only fools?
Is it strange to have two?
Are any other characters actually “fools”?
From Court to Green World
Green World/ Forest of Arden
(182) "Shakespeare's type of romantic comedy . . . [is] the
drama of the green world, its plot being assimilated to the
ritual theme of the triumph of life and love over the waste
land . . . there is the . . .rhythmic movement from normal
world to green world and back again”
What freedoms are there in
the forest?
What different types of love are
displayed?
Silvius and Phoebe
Rosalind and Orlando
Touchstone and Audrey
Celia (Aliena) and Oliver
Film Clips and one entire film
The discovery and satire on Orlando’s letters:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd1N3pjQQbc
1936 film version in its entirety:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9hTxzLHU3I
Theatrical versions
2011? Globe Theater – first 14 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47lcBMhL42Mhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAem7-Rwaec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47lcBMhL42M
Part 3:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj0HmmELfD4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoMCA1vo4G4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GenxDHxIeZE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_zvj484BzU
As You Like It, last 6 parts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5DyUUoOJ9c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVeO3eoHutM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE5MQv3jKXQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ra6uMnOYH0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A4q3cBrR20
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAIKt7_vZv0
Does AYLI fit Frye’s definition
of comedy?
(44) "New Comedy normally presents an erotic intrigue between a young man and a
young woman which is blocked by some kind of opposition, usually paternal, and
resolved by a twist in the plot . . . At the beginning of the play the forces thwarting the
hero are in control of the play's society, but after a discovery in which the hero becomes
wealthy or the heroine respectable, a new society crystallizes on the stage around the
hero and his bride [after the "comic discovery"]. The action of the comedy thus moves
toward the incorporation of the hero into the society that he naturally fits. The hero
himself is seldom a very interesting person.”
(170) "The comic ending is generally manipulated by a twist in the plot . . . Happy
endings do not impress us as true, but as desirable . . . something gets born at the end of
comedy . . . Unlikely conversions, miraculous transformations, and providential
assistance are inseparable from comedy.”
(182) "Shakespeare's type of romantic comedy . . . [is] the drama of the green world, its
plot being assimilated to the ritual theme of the triumph of life and love over the waste
land . . . there is the . . .rhythmic movement from normal world to green world and
back again”
What is not comic about this comedy?
How does the “Seven Ages of Man”
Speech fit in?
Morgan Freeman does it for you live:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziXqEX6AwKA
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many
parts,
5 His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
And then the whining schoolboy, with his
satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
10 Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the
pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in
quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
15 Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the
justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
20 Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too
wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
25 And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans
everything.
Why all the emphasis on time?
Rosalind does the epilogue:
significant or not?
It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; but it is no more
unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue. If it be true that good
wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue; yet
to good wine they do use good bushes, and good plays prove the
better by the help of good epilogues. What a case am I in then, that
am neither a good epilogue nor cannot insinuate with you in the
behalf of a good play! I am not furnished like a beggar, therefore to
beg will not become me: my way is to conjure you; and I'll begin with
the women. I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to
like as much of this play as please you: and I charge you, O men, for
the love you bear to women--as I perceive by your simpering, none of
you hates them--that between you and the women the play may please.
If I were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had beards that
pleased me, complexions that liked me and breaths that I defied not:
and, I am sure, as many as have good beards or good faces or sweet
breaths will, for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.