Comparing the Character of Life in As You Like It and King Lear

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The Character of Life in As You Like It and King Lear

Through comedy and tragedy Shakespeare reveals the vast expanses and profound depths of the character of life. For him they are not separate worlds of drama and romance, but poles of a continuum. The distinction between tragedy and comedy is called in question when we turn to Shakespeare. Though the characters differ in stature and power, and the events vary in weight and significance, the movements of life in all Shakespeare's plays are governed by the same universal principles which move events in our own lives. Through myriad images Shakespeare portrays not only the character of man and society but the character of life itself.

The difference between comedy and tragedy, success and failure, good fortune and catastrophe often seems to turn on a seemingly chance event. In All's Well that Ends Well, Helene's pilgrimage to win back Bertram succeeds on the basis of her chance meeting with the mother of a virgin whom Bertram is courting. Time is another crucial determinant. Often a split second or brief interval is the difference between life and death. In this small but all important gap of time, the character of life is revealed most clearly. In As You Like It, Orlando came in time to save Oliver from the serpent that was winding around his neck. Out of context, these events would appear as a very thin and frail fabric upon which to build great comedy and tragedy were it not for the fact that they are true to a deeper level of causality in life. Suzanne Langer has called comedy 'an image of life triumphing over chance.' It may be otherwise stated that in comedy the seemingly chance events of life move in favor of a positive resolution, whereas in tragedy they seem to conspire toward disaster. Helene Gardner observes that 'comedy is full of purposes mistook, not "falling on the inventor's head" but luckily misfiring altogether. In comedy, as often happens in life, people are mercifully saved from being as wicked as they meant to be.' 5

Time as well as chance events are expressive of another set of determinants, another level of causality in the wider plane of life. The critical gap between human action and its results depends on the response of the environing life and expresses the character of life in the given circumstances.

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