7 ludic comedy ‘As you like it‘

1.

brothers, Oliver the big one (third only in last scene)

about inheritence, fathers will also inherited Orlando and Oliver can’t respect that, is jealous

suggests his friend (Wrestler) kills him

Orlando wins in wrestle competition

Adam tells Orlando about the plans of his brother and they run away to the forest (many scenes in the forest)

order of duke frederick: Oliver shall look for Orlando and arrest him bc Orlando is in love with the dukes daughters cousin

Oliver sleeps under a tree and a lioness approaches him

Orlando shows up and saves him by wrestling with the lioness

Oliver is reformed and the brothers are reconciled

general pattern = characters get transformed when in the forest

Orlando meets dukes brother (exil in the forest) and demands food with a sword, but they ask him to put it down because they have enough food

2

DS has been kicked out by DF, now living in the forest

DS daughter Rosalind will marry Orlando

DF daughter Celia will marry Oliver

When rosalind had to leave the court Celia goes along with her, not to DFs liking

DF wants to kill his brother, he enters forest, talks to a religious man that converts him, decides to stay in the forest and leaves the dukedom to his brother

same themes: brother conflict, posession, power

1 she sees him at the wrestling match, love at first sight, playful

3 from the forest, sheppards

4 touchstone: fool, decided to accompany C and R to the forest

finds Audrey in the forest, more about sex

noble and heroic -

tells him his brother wants to kill him, offers to accompany him and use his old age pension for that

does not work for money but out of moral obligation

1 allusion to sermon on the mount (Bergpredigt)

4 ie a prose narrative shakespeare follows

1 only one love plot with obstacles

2 conflicts are not acted out, they are summarised in narrative terms

example of 2

How the conflict of the dukes is round up

thirs brother enters

Shakespeare refers to satire in MSD, rejecting

now more elaborate:

puts a satirist in the play

Jaques = the satirist

1 jaques does not care about the wounded deer, he makes an image of what happens in the human world, turns it into 100 similies

Satirical:

characters are reduced to one/two features

degrading/ negative comparisons (animals)

attitude towards Jaques

does not endorse/support him

also does not satirise him

amused tolerance

second fool (wearing a motley)

critical:

DF says J is guilty himself of what he condemns/ criticizes und others

he projects his own weaknesses to others

J feels like the ‘doctor’ curing people

someone who purges others off their humours =(satirist in Shakespears time)

here the satirist is a humour character himself - introduced as melancholy jaques:

has a melancholy of his own

fool

plays with words, ideas, identities, roles

apart from rosalind he is the character who is most responsible for the ludic aspect

round character

characteristic moment:

reports the encounter with jaques and jaques speech, Touchstone imitates jaques and his negative attitude/perspective

After touchstone most responsible for the ludic aspect

sad and serious mood when we first meet her (banishment of her father, Isolation)

> connects falling in love with devising sports

love and play are connected (unusual for shakespeare, msd very serious)

assumes a different identity, wants to play a man as selfprotection when they leave to the forest

role playing connected with joy (destructive and restrictive in Volpone)

characteristic moment:

shebard tells rosalind about phoebe (3 not returning love, coy) and silvius (2 unhappily in love)

she will join and play (playful character)

Phoebe falls in love with Rosalinds male role, is in the same Situation as Silvius (unrequited) and sympathyzes him, finally returns his love

R meets O when she played her role and told him she could cure people of love

love as humour, Rosalind as doctor (like Jaques)

Their ‘therapy session’ does not make Orlando fall out of love and rosalind loves him even more, no cure, only got intensified

> parody of the concept of the comedy of humours

she takes orlando through the stages of a relationship

courtship, marriage, marital disagreement, adultery

sceptical view of marriage/ love (Satire)

characteristic mood of love is mockery

Pro

claim: on as you like it and in comedy in general, women are empowered

have a greater say, literally and metaphorically

when a father hands over his daughter at a marriage

a woman is owned, controled; first by the father, then husband

> partriarcal part

performative part:

not her father says that, she does herself, she has the agency/ control

> contradicts the content of that sentence (can’t say you give yourself to someone when you are someones property)

Contra

empowerment is only temporary, kind of carnival (limited) it suspends the usual hirarchies but its framed

At the end of the play women typically get married and the patriarchal order is reinstored