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Pastoral vs court life in “As You Like It”
 

Life in the countryside is associated with tranquility, closeness to nature; it is a pure life, inferior to life at court.

City life is viewed as a decadence form, as the court was the political center. Pastoral life is a Utopia, an Eden, as there’s no hierarchy, it is an equalitarian society of utopian dimensions, an idealized world, characterized by honesty and simplicity, has nothing to do with power, it is not a world of flattery, but it is an exile for Duke Senior, as he loses his status.

The Forest of Arden represents not only life in wilderness, a natural life, but Arden is a penalty: “Here feel we not the penalty of Adam” (2.1, 5), it is the world after Adam’s fall, as Duke Senior has to endure the seasonal change, while court represents civilized life, it is superior. Duke Senior, however, welcomes winter’s chill because, unlike the flattery of insincere courtiers, it leads him to self-awareness.

The ideas on Duke Senior’s philosophizing, “Sweet are the uses of adversity/ Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, / Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; / And this our life, exempt from public haunt,/ Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,/ Sermons in stones, and good in everything”(2.1,12-17), are based in Stoic thought. He is gracefully stating platitudes, discoursing on a theme. The Duke may also refer to the fact that Arden may have a jewel, as toads were believed to have a pearl in their head which held great virtues. In the countryside the world is still enchanted, there can man find also elements of city life as “tongues”, “books” in the wilderness. Nature is here one’s school. Life in nature is preferable because the harshness or not so bad at plotting, it lacks luxury, it is an abstinent life, a virtuous world, it has a plurality of perspectives.

The duality between the two worlds is represented by the difference between Corin who represents the pastoral life and Touchstone who represents the court. Corin embodies the simplicity of a virtue, of truth, of honesty, he is a religious person. He reasons plainly, this is where he takes his source of his happiness.

Touchstone embodies the carnavalesque tradition, which belongs to the court life, he is a twister of words, he keeps contradicting himself and has a bad logic, while Corin has common sensical logic and he lacks money.

Shakespeare highlights the benefits of the life in the forest which are seen as relative to life at court as well as the contrast between the formal world of the court and country life in Arden, concluding “As You Like At” as an exploration of “real” versus “ideal”.



Bibliography: “Essays in the Renaissance drama”, Madalina Nicolaescu
Introduction at “As You Like It”
“As You Like It”, lecture, Madalina Nicolaescu


 

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