Love And Love In Shakespeare's As You Like It

The Shakespearian comedy, As You Like It, parodies many of the typical conventions in literature dealing with love. In poetry, a large variety of poetry and literature portray love as a deadly disease that can only bring suffering and torment to the lover, the lover only experiences short term bliss before submerging into lifelong misery, or the usual assumption that the male is dominated by the female. These ideas have built the foundation of the courtly traditions of love, which had a tremendous influence on European literature for hundreds of years prior to Shakespeare’s time. In As You Like It, the majority of the characters lament over the suffering caused by their unrequited and unsuccessful love, but these laments are all ridiculous, unconvincing, and absolutely hilarious. While Orlando’s incompetent poems conform to the cliché that he should “live and die slave,” his sentiments are completely ridiculed (III.ii.142). Even Silvius, the shepherd, assumes the overemphasized role of the overly tortured lover, asking his beloved Phoebe to notice “the wounds invisible” (III.v.31). In general, As You Like It breaks away from the traditional love storyline by presenting love as a force intended to search for happiness and fulfillment and mocks those who wallow in their own suffering. The play itself completely revolves around love. Not only does Shakespeare place an emphasis on the romantic aspect of love, but he also makes it a point to reveal the importance of love between friends and family. Rosalind, the heroine of the play, and her cousin, Celia, share a love so strong that it might as well be the subject of the entire play. Celia speaks to the powers of love in her introductory scene with Rosalind, in which she begs her cousi...

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...n a woman. The entire play is based around gender confliction. Rosalind is a character who is played by a man who pretends to be a woman who pretends to be a man who pretends to be a woman to win the love of a man. The theater, like the Forest of Ardenne, is an escape from reality where the wonderful, sometimes complexities of human life can be observed.

Conclusively, I thoroughly enjoyed As You Like It. The play deviated from Shakespeare’s generic tragic dramas and brought comedic relief throughout the entire story. I really appreciated the overall theme that love can be absolutely ridiculous. Even though the ending of the comedy was blatant, it contributed to overall comedic approach that Shakespeare was aiming for. I would most definitely recommend this play to my fellow students. For it can give insight into the strange positive and negative aspects of love.