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: film version in its entirety:
Theatrical versions 2011? Globe Theater – first 14 minutes Part 3:
As You Like It, last 6 parts
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: 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.