As You Like It - 3

The amount of time covered in this play cannot be very long.  There are not many occasions where the time or days are mentioned so they sort of run together.  There are some events in the beginning that occur offstage, but most of the play's events occur onstage.  One event that is spoken of which the audience just has to take the character's words for it is the scene in the forest where Oliver is sleeping under the tree.  "A green gilded snake had wreathed itself, who with her head nimble in threats approached the opening of his mouth.... A lioness, with udders all drawn dry, lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch, when that the sleeping man should stir" (IV.iii.pg 64).  Oliver must explain the details of this event as it did not happen onstage.  I do not believe that there is a meaning in which actions are dramatized and which are reported.  I thought the play's structure was pretty tight as the events happened right after another with no real breaks besides scene changes. Overall, I thought the play was O.K.  I deemed it sort of unreal because as soon as Rosalind and Orlando saw each other, they were in love.  This sort of thing happens many times in Shakespeare's plays so I was not really surprised.

As You Like It - Theme

This particular play has many themes.  One of them is that love is a many splintered thing.  This theme is portrayed in relationships including Phoebe and Ganymede, Phoebe and Sylvius, Rosalind and Orlando, and Touchstone and William and Audrey.  Phoebe falls in love with Ganymede, who is really Rosalind dressed as a guy.  During this scene, Rosalind/Ganymede pleads "I pray you, don not fall in love with me, for I am falser than vows made in wine" (III.v.pg 52).  Right after, Sylvius tries to convince Phoebe that he should not be in love with Ganymede but with him instead.  Sylvius says, "Whatever sorrow is, relief would be: If you do sorrow at my grief in love, by giving love your sorrow and my grief were both extermined" (III.v.pg 53).  Touchstone, Audrey, and William are involved in a love triangle.  Eventually, Touchstone tells William to leave Audrey alone by saying, "I will deal in poison with thee, or in bastinado, or in steel" (V.i.pg 68).  Obviously, the play focuses around the relationship between Rosalind and Orlando, and Rosalind even dresses as a guy to help guide Orlando to say and do the right things when he sees her.

As You Like It - Comedy

"As You Like It" is a comedy because no one dies at the end of the play like in Othello.  Instead, there is a happy ending, and good rules over evil.  It is primarily romantic because most of the main characters are in love or want to get married by the end of the play.  The audience does not really experience any drama as they just watch it take place on stage.  There are not very many moments, if any, that make the audience feel any sort of emotion in this particular play.  One instance in the play where there is no emotion displayed, just a retelling of the story, is in Act I, scene i.  On page three, Charles says, "the old duke banished by his brother the old duke, and three of four loving lords" (I.i.pg 3)  Shakespeare could have portrayed this banishment taking place, and the audience could have had sympathy for Duke Senior.  Instead, he has a character explain the event to make the audience feel less emotion.  I like to relate to the characters I read about and feel their emotions, but Shakespeare did not allow me to do that in this play.