As You Like It
In the play, As You Like It, by William Shakespeare, there is an omnipresent theme of a pastoral life versus court life that permeates throughout the play and engulfs all the characters. This ubiquitous theme italicizes and exhibits the similarities and differences that court and pastoral life play on the characters that inhabit these surroundings and environment. Characters such as Duke Senior, Touchstone, and Corin play a major part in shedding light on the comparison of pastoral and court life, which help the readers more plainly discover the similarities and discrepancies of these two ways of life. In Act Two, Duke Senior presents his views of court life and that of pastoral life, which does a great deal in clearing up the gray areas in Shakespeare’s readers’ minds of the two very different lifestyles. Duke Senior engages in a discourse with his fellow brothers of exile and rhetorically questions them by saying, “Hath not old custom made this lif . . .
The simplicity of the forest provides shelter from the strains of the court, but it also creates the need for urban style and sophistication: one would not do, or even matter, without the other. in respect that it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in respect it is not in the court, it is tedious (3. As the characters prepare to return to life at court, the play does not laud country over city or vice versa, but instead suggests a delicate and necessary balance between the two. As You Like It is a pastoral literature that thrives on the contrast between life in the city and life in the country. 1)” He responds to his own question with a biblical allusion stating “Here feel we not the penalty of Adam (2. Touchstone also tells the shepherd that he is “damned, like an ill roasted egg, all on one side” because he never experienced court life (3. e more sweet that that of painted pomp? Are not these woods more free from peril than the envious court? (2. Indeed, much healing is done in the forest—the lovesick are coupled with their lovers and the usurped duke returns to his throne—but Shakespeare reminds us that life in Ardenne is a temporary affair. Corin’s refute to Touchstone’s implications are simple and accurate in defending his life style, but in the end he gives up because he feels Touchstone has too courtly a wit for him. When Touchstone and Corin are walking together Corin asks Touchstone how he likes the Shepard’s life. Furthermore, Touchstone and Corin’s quarrel over pastoral life versus court life help to further elucidate the pros and cons of these two means of living. Touchstone replies that “in respect of itself, it is a good life; but in respect that it is a shepherd’s life, it is naught….
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