Structuralist Shakespearean Analyses: As You Like It

As You Like It: First Impressions

I enjoyed As You Like It, although not quite as much as I do Shakespeare’s dramas. I tend to be most drawn to art where the artists pull out all the stops and attempt to be as serious and awesome as possible, as opposed to when they try to be playful or make witty commentaries on things. Interestingly, the contrast between these two paradigms played out in music history during the operatic reformation towards the end of the Baroque era. During that time, the French helped opera buffa unseat the pre-eminence held by opera seria, which culminated in the music of the classical era – a shift that, not spurning the fruits of it, I have my reservations about (Ginot-Slacik).

My comparative dislike of comedies aside, I was surprised by how well the themes in this play tessellated into the subjects in literature that I find most interesting; specifically, the relationship between self and other and sign and signified, as well as the implications that this has in cognition. This dynamic was most evidently at play between Orlando and Ganymede/Rosalind in a fascinating, albeit somewhat confusing way. One of Orlando’s lines in Act III, Scene II, stuck out as connoting particular significance apropos of this subject. In it, he says that “neither rhyme nor reason can express how / much” he is in love with Rosalind (III.ii.405-406). Later in the scene, Rosalind also comments that “love is... a madness” (III.ii.407). Perhaps it’s my idiosyncratic analysis of this kind of thing, but both comments entail the breakdown of the symbolic order and, by extension, intrapsychic distinctions between phenomena – a subject that permeates love discourse throughout the ages.

I also am always very compelled by both Classical and homosexual literature, and I was particularly struck by the extent to which both were features of this work, as well as the ways in which Shakespeare ties themes regarding the self and symbolic order into these. Orlando is a perfect embodiment of this bisection (pardon the pun), as he supposedly believes Ganymede to be a young man when he assents to wooing him/her. This dynamic also manifests in the relationship between Celia and Rosalind, as evidenced in Act 1, scene 3, in which the Duke banishes Rosalind, and Celia proclaims that she, too, is banished because the two are one. Homoeroticism is also a feature of Orlando and Adam’s relationship – something that is particularly evident in Act II, scene iii, wherein Adam extolls the former’s virtues, and the two run away together to live outside the constraints of society.

With his intimate knowledge of classical literature, Shakespeare further drives home the homosexual undertones of this play with his decision to have Rosalind dress in drag and take the pseudonym “Ganymede.” In Greek and Roman mythology, Ganymede was the most beautiful of the mortals and, consequently, was abducted by Zeus, who kept him, according to some stories, in sexual servitude (Britannica). The trope of an older man having a sexual relationship with a beautiful male youth was common in antiquity. It is, therefore, impossible that Shakespeare would have been unaware of the implications of the alias that he chose for Rosalind.

It is also very curious that Rosalind assumes the name “Ganymede,” as it is actually Orlando who embodies the various features attributed to this figure. He’s idolized by older men like Adam and is portrayed as a beautiful, somewhat naive young man with courage and strength, as evidenced by his defeat of Charles and his warding off the snake and lion that attack Oliver. Perhaps this conflation is attributable to the fact that the actor playing Rosalind on the Elizabethan stage would have, himself, been a boy. But perhaps it is a more profound comment on the subject/object distinction or lack thereof that is so characteristic of literature dealing with love. Shakespeare explicitly references this dynamic several times throughout the play, whether it be in the aforementioned case of Celia’s profession to Rosalind or the moment in which Rosalind/Ganymede faints upon hearing that Orlando did the same after his battle with the lion, thereby evoking a mini-“Liebestod.”

Taking a further look at the corollaries with Greek literature that this play has: throughout the bulk of the story, Orlando’s pursuit of Rosalind is somewhat reminiscent of Apollo’s attempts to woo Daphne (a subject that I know Shakespeare was intimately familiar with based upon the reading my reading of Shakespeare: Who Was He?: The Oxford Challenge to the Bard of Avon). Specifically, Rosalind is an almost unattainable figure for Orlando, who at one point in Act V, scene ii says that he can no longer be satisfied just pretending that Ganymede is Rosalind (V.ii.53). This proclamation could be read as him starting to fall in love with Ganymede, who responds by saying that he/she “will weary (him)... no / longer with idle talking” (V.ii.54-55); perhaps a double-entendre. More overtly, however, this is an expression of Orlando’s dissatisfaction at the ultimate unattainability of a love object – something demonstrated by his compulsion to write her signifier repeatedly on the trees of the forest. This dynamic is one that Apollo’s pursuit of Daphne can be interpreted as conveying and one which Rosalind confirms later in the scene when she says that professions of love are “like the howling of Irish wolves against the / moon” (V.ii.115-116), i.e., futile.

On its surface, As You Like It doesn't immediately appear to be a particularly deep play. It's about a young man and a young woman with fraught family lives who quickly fall in love upon meeting one another. Coincidentally, they run away to the same woods to live their lives in peace, though the woman is in disguise and the man doesn't realize who she is at first. In the end, everyone lives happily ever after – the two main characters marry and are free to return to their kingdom unmolested.  However, in true Shakespearean fashion, this play conveys so much more, whether it be Shakespeare's blurring of gender roles and sexuality or his seamless incorporation of Classical references that help drive home how his plot and dialogue speak to the essence of language and the human condition.

Works Cited

Ginot-Slacik, Charlotte. “How Gluck Revolutionised Opera.” Opéra National De Paris, Opéra National De Paris, 3 Aug. 2021, www.operadeparis.fr/en/magazine/how-gluck-revolutionised-opera.

Shakespeare, William. “As You Like It.” The Folger Shakespeare, Folger Shakespeare Library, shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/as-you-like-it/.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Ganymede.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2018, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ganymede-Greek-mythology.

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The Implications of the “Wise Fool” Trope in Touchstone’s Verse: A close reading of As You Like It, Act III, scene ii, by William Shakespeare

The differences Shakespeare highlights between Touchstone and Orlando's verse in Act III, scene ii of As You Like It demonstrate one of the central thrusts of the entire play. Though he occupies a comparatively lesser role than those of the protagonists in this story, Shakespeare presents the figure of Touchstone as one in a long lineage of "wise fools." For, though he is a court jester, Touchstone delivers what is perhaps the most incisive commentary throughout the play, this scene being one such instance. In it, he contrasts Orlando's flowery, sycophantic verse with what he sees as the reality of the love dynamic.

It's of no mean significance that perhaps the most infamous line from the whole play is delivered by Touchstone in the subsequent scene. In it, he remarks that "the truest poetry is the most feigning" (III.iii.18-19). This message doesn't just have implications on the prose that he extemporaneously recited in the previous scene – it is also an example of Shakespeare pointing to the fact that it is the fool who is poised to deliver particularly poignant insights. For it's the fool who is supposedly himself the most "feigning" person in a story.

Later in the play, Shakespeare includes yet another indication that Touchstone’s lines are of particular note. Specifically, in the scene in which Touchstone remarks, “The fool doth think he is wise, but the / wise man knows himself to be a fool” (V.i.31-32). This pronouncement is not just a witty dig that he gets into a man vying for his love’s affection – it implies that, precisely because he is a “fool,” Touchstone is also wise. Interestingly, it’s possible that, with his knowledge of ancient Greek culture, Shakespeare also intended this message, either subconsciously or consciously, to be a recapitulation of Socrates’ Apology. While defending himself for his life against the charge of heresy, Socrates recalled the story of when he went to see the oracle at Delphi, who had previously said that he was the smartest man in all of Greece. When Socrates asked her why, she replied that it was because Socrates thought himself to be ignorant and doubted everyone who believed that they had unique insights into the truth (Brickhouse & Smith 657). In other words, like Touchstone, Socrates was truly wise because he was a “gadfly” to those in power who thought themselves to be smarter than they were.

The idea of the wise fool was not one that Shakespeare invented, but it is one which he brought to new heights, whether it be with Touchstone, or Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night, or Lear’s Fool in King Lear, to name a few (Brudevold 2). Though there are practically innumerable metaphorical significances instantiated within this trope, one particularly salient feature is that, because of their unique position in the court, they are among the only ones who can speak power to authority – something that has a historical precedent in real life (Brudevold 3). This dynamic is borne out in the verse that Touchstone recites to Rosalind, as he takes a crude, mocking tone with her that she might not have been accustomed to as a lady of the court, despite how witty and good-natured Shakespeare depicts her to be.

When set in relief to Orlando’s poetry, which Touchstone is satirizing, the juxtaposition between these two attitudes towards both Rosalind as well as love in general is quite stark. Orlando paints a very idealistic view of Rosalind. In describing her as more gorgeous than any jewel in India and all pictures in the world being “black” compared to her, he portrays her beauty as matchless. He furthermore compares her worth to that of the wind in that she is omnipresent and boundless before combining these two characterizations in his final couplet. In it, Orlando says that the image of her face – the most beautiful face there is, is the only thought that he can conjure in his mind’s eye (III.ii.87-95). In his verse, Orlando portrays Rosalind as a figure whose beauty and virtue are unparalleled and unbounded, both metaphorically and psychologically, for, in the last couplet, he describes his conception of her as pervading his every thought. This characterization is very much in keeping with the tradition of love poetry, which frequently meditates on these strains of the love object being all-consuming, pervasive yet evanescent, and incomparable. However, these are all themes that Touchstone goes on to challenge in his verse.

Touchstone prefaces his poem by saying that all of Orlando’s adorations will wither after “eight years together” because his words do not give an accurate impression of the nature of love (III.ii.96). Instead, he starts by essentially calling Rosalind a “piece of ass,” then compares her to a cat in heat and someone whose insides need to be “lined” like a Winter garment. He then equates her with a bundle of hay that has to be bound and a sweet nut with a bitter exterior (III.ii.101-110). Like Orlando, he saves the most charged lines for the last couplet, which one can read several ways. On the one hand, he is saying that Rosalind may look like a “sweet rose,” but like the aforementioned nut, will result in displeasure or even pain down the line. There’s also another somewhat crass double-entendre hidden in the couplet, either indicating that people may be merely thinking with their “prick” in pursuing her or perhaps a comment on the fact that Rosalind is in drag. Most significantly, however, this line conveys that there’s a catch to love because it ensures exquisite pain as well as fulfillment and beauty.

            In his verse, Touchstone adopts the perspective of a lover whose (at the risk of mixing metaphors) bloom has fallen off the rose. As a consequence, he sometimes quite vulgarly lashes out and objectifies Rosalind. Both are the inverse of Orlando’s characterization of her, which is idolatrous and portrays her as without distinction. The latter descriptor is antithetical to objectification in another sense of the word, for in making a given phenomenon an object, the cognitive subject renders it finite and comprehensible. This act of “objectification” itself is at odds with the traditional love dynamic, which often depicts love as the unification of two subjects instead of the literal subject-object relationship inherent in the nature of consciousness.

Touchstone goes on to say that all love poetry is false when he says that “what / they swear in poetry may be said as lovers they do / feign (III.iii.19-21). This kind of proclamation could be merely a simple further denigration of the type of verse he mocks in the preceding scene. However, it could also be a comment on the aforementioned subject-subject relationship; that lovers who proclaim they love one another through flowery words are betraying the fact that they’re clinging to signifiers, which inherently draw (oftentimes necessary) delineations between phenomena. In other words, like the fool who says he is wise, those who idealize their love objects through words demonstrate nothing but their own falsity.  

            As is hopefully evident, Shakespeare imbues Touchstone’s words with particular significance and uses him to make a meta-commentary on the nature of love and poetry itself. In doing so, he draws upon themes stretching back to antiquity that prevail to the 21st century – themes that have no more fascinating implications than those in the verses that Touchstone and Orlando opine in Act III, Scene ii. Like with all things, though – perhaps it’s somewhere between their two characterizations that the truth can be found.

Works Cited

Brickhouse, Thomas C., and Nicholas D. Smith. “The Origin of Socrates' Mission.” Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 44, no. 4, 1983, pp. 657–666., doi:10.2307/2709221.

Brudevold, Siri M. “The Wisdom in Folly: An Examination of William Shakespeare 's Fools in Twelfth Night and King Lear.” Scripps College, Scholarship @ Claremont, 2015, pp. 1–71. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/681

Shakespeare, William. “As You like It.” The Folger Shakespeare, Folger Shakespeare Library, shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/as-you-like-it/.