3. William Shakespeare, As You Like It

     Before I begin, I’ll add a few more words about Renaissance, which I’ve again borrowed from the Russian historian A.F. Losev and converted into English (I only confess it to avoid plagiarism). The time when Shakespeare and Marlowe created their unforgettable masterpieces is rather a decline of Renaissance. Towards the end of the golden age humanism passed through a crisis. Freedom of will was turned to destruction of those who did not subordinate to authority, while the beginning of the golden age was full of gay hopes to free humans from the spiritual chains of the Middle Ages.  Yet, what signifies the works of Renaissance activists is realism. (End of Losev’s loan). However, it would be naive to imagine  life during that time like it is in Shakespeare’s comedies. It would be more relevant to the assignment, I think, to consider the other works of Shakespeare, such as Macbeth or Richard III, for these events are closer to what was going on at that time. But because “there may be more than one way of rendering this  story”, I’ll try this one.

The pastoral ideal, which Shakespeare explores in his comedy As you Like It, is a world that fell out of time, that is the world where time moves along its own exclusive circle. Time in this circle does not bring any qualitative changes. Most scenes of the play take place in the forest of Arden, where a “good guy” - Duke Senior, banished by a “bad guy” - Duke Frederick, carries on a healthy and simple life, which he praises so persuasively:

Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,

Hath not old custom made this life more sweet

Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods

More free from peril  than the envious court?

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And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

I would not change it. (II. 1)

This pastoral landscape is permeated by humanity, in opposition to the savage laws which prevail at the court from which Duke Senior is banished. By describing the delights of country life among sweet shepherds and shepherdesses, Shakespeare expresses a protest against the brutality and depravity of the feudal courts.

     Interestingly, everyone in this comedy who steps into the forest, leaves entirely or partially changed. In the forest, free from urban laws, they learn to love. The most obvious example is vicious Oliver, who learns to love his brother Orlando the moment he enters the forest (IV, 3). Of Duke Frederick, the villain of the piece, Jacques says:

And to the skirts of this wild wood he came;

Where, meeting with an old religious man,

After some questions with him, was converted

Both from his enterprise and from the world;

His crown bequeathing to his banished brother...(V,4)