The Shakespeare Book

183

There may not be much plot, but
there is a feast of romance and
comedy—poems and songs, wit
and banter, all spilling from
characters’ lips with continual
invention. It is an intellectual
and poetic picnic to which the
audience is invited to spend a
couple of hours for their pleasure
and mental stimulation. Nothing
much happens because nothing is
meant to happen. Just as time is
briefly suspended for the characters
in Arden—“There’s / no clock in the
forest,” (3.2.294–295) says Orlando—
so it is also for the audience
watching the play as they go on a
brief vacation in the theater. It’s a
chance to mentally recharge and
rethink—to “fleet the / time
carelessly” (1.1.112–113)—away
from the pressures of ordinary life.

Country vs city
As You Like It is structured in three
parts. It begins in the court or city,
where unsolvable problems arise;
it journeys into nature or a fantasy
world, where the problems are
untangled; and then returns to the
court, the real world at the end with
the problems resolved. In fact, As
You Like It ends before the final
return to court, but with Duke

THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN’S MAN

Frederick’s sudden change of heart

offstage at the end, it’s clear only

Jaques will stay in the forest.

It is the nature section, in the

Forest of Arden, that dominates

most of the play: for this reason, it is

often described as a “pastoral

comedy.” Pastoral literature was

very much in vogue at the time—

British critic Frank Kermode

described As You Like It as “the

most topical of the comedies,”

because it is most engaged with the

Hugh Thomson’s 1915 illustration

of Act 1, Scene 3, in which Celia and

Rosalind contemplate leaving the court,

hints at the move to the idyllic forest in

the finery of the peacocks’ feathers.

I did not entreat to have

her stay.

It was your pleasure,

and your own remorse.

Celia

Act 1, Scene 3

intellectual interests of the age. The

word “pastoral” refers literally to the

shepherd’s life. It is not about real

shepherds but an idealization—a

harmonious “Arcadia.” Shepherds

don’t look after sheep in pastoral

literature; instead they are poets, ❯❯