Court vs Pastoral

In As You Like It Shakespeare uses two completely different settings to help move not only the play along but develop characters. The first part of the play all takes place in the court of Duke Frederick and the second part of the play takes place in the Forest of Arden where Duke Senior lives in banishment. In the court scenes everything is very strict and hash. The words exchanged between families are filled with anger. The opening scene is Orlando trying to escape his brother and a small fight ensues. Then you have the wrestling match and finally Duke Frederick's banishment of Rosalind. The Duke is a cruel figure in this part of the play and his court matches it.

In History of the Theatre Brockett states that, "...pastoral comedies that mingle classical mythology with English subjects" (Brockett, 108). I feel that this really plays well into what As You Like It is. In the pastoral anything can happen. The Forest of Arden is a freer place where Rosalind can speak her mind and fall in love. In fact, many couples fall in love here: Rosalind and Orlando, Celia and Oliver, Audrey and Touchstone, and Phebe and Silvius. There is a wedding at the end of the play, where, Hymen, the god of marriage shows up to wed the couples. Plus at the end of the play the third brother of Oliver and Orlando, Jaques shows up and states, "Duke Frederick, hearing how that every day men of great worth resorted to this forest, addressed a might power, which were on foot in his own conduct, purposely to take his brother here and put him to the sword; and to the skirts of this wild wood he came, where, meeting a religious man, after some question with him, was converted both from his enterprise and from the world, his crown bequeathing to hiss banished brother, and all their lands restored to them again that were with him exiled" (Shakespeare, pg 102). This makes the pastoral seem like it has some sort of magical power that just brings the good out in people. Both Duke Frederick and Oliver who were bad in the court become good in the pastoral.

There is also a feel that time is frozen in the court; that it never moves. It is stale and kept the same. Whereas in the pastoral time is limitless and can move about freely and openly. The feel and state of these two "worlds" helps create a wonderful and whimsical play.

Sources Cited:

A You Like It; William Shakespeare, editied by Albert Gilman; Signet Classics; New York; 1998

History of Theatre: Foundation Edition; Oscar G. Brockett and Franklin J. Hildy; Pearson Education Inc.; Boston, MA; 2007s