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Gender politics in as you like it by William Shakespeare
Gender politics in as you like it by William Shakespeare
Shakespeare drama literary analysis
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One of the most intriguing aspects of As You Like It by William Shakespeare concerns the issue of gender. This issue generates a lot of interest and discussions due to its complexity. The main reason for such a concern in the play is the cross-dressing and role-playing. The central love interest between Rosalind and Orlando calls into question the conservative wisdom about men and women and their gender roles. It also challenges our presumptions about these roles in courtship, love, and relationships.
At the center of this courtship is a very complex ambiguity, which is difficult to fully appreciate without a production with which to compare. Here, we have a man, playing a woman, who has dressed herself up as a man who is pretending to be a woman, who is then courting Orlando. It’s quite a complex list of roles. In modern times, even if a young male actor were to not play the role of Rosalind, the theatrical irony remains far beyond the complexity of most plays. This theatrical irony is particularly relevant in Act Four, Scene One. In this scene, Orlando and Rosalind/Ganymede are on stage together. Rosalind, dressed as Ganymede, meets with Jaques for the first time. He explains that he prefers to be glum and somber because he has seen the world, and that his contemplations on what he has seen and experienced make him sad. Rosalind tells him that she prefers a fool, who keeps her happy to experience, which makes her sad. Orlando arrives and Rosalind says goodbye to Jaques. Orlando then approaches her and calls her Rosalind. She reprimands him for being an hour late and then accuses him of not truly being in love. Rosalind finally tells Orlando that she is in the right state of mind and is in good enough humor to woo her. He t...
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...to make opinions and observations about them. It also makes us as readers and viewers think about true love and what it means. I found this play to be incredibly interesting, insightful, and an overall wonderful text to read and analyze.
Works Cited
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Shakespeare, William, and Juliet Dusinberre. As You like It. London: Arden Shakespeare, 2006. Print.
Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. The Norton Shakespeare: Essential Plays. Eds. Stephen Greenblatt et al. New York: W.W Norton, 2009. Print.
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Kemp, Theresa D. Women in the Age of Shakespeare. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2009. Print.
It is well known that Shakespeare’s comedies contain many marriages, some arranged, some spontaneous. During Queen Elizabeth's time, it was considered foolish to marry for love. However, in Shakespeare’s plays, people often marry for love. With a closer look into two of his most famous plays As You Like It and Twelfth Night or What You Will, I found that while marriages are defined and approached differently in these two plays, Shakespeare’s attitudes toward love in both plays share similarities. The marriages in As You Like It’s conform to social expectation, while the marriages are more rebellious in Twelfth Night. Love, in both plays, was defined as
Clark, W.G., and W. Aldis Wirhgt, eds. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Vol 2. USA: Nd. 2 vols.
Dutton, R., & Howard, J.E. (2003). A Companion to Shakespeare’s Works.(p. 9) Maiden, MA: Blackwell Pub.
Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night, Or, What You Will. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2009. Print.
Love is the central theme in the play ‘As You Like It’ by William Shakespeare, the author expressed many types of love in the play. Some of them are, brotherly love, lust for love, loyal, friendship love, unrequited love, but of course, romantic love is the focus of this play.
Shakespeare, William. 'As You Like It.' The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt et al. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1997. 1600-1656.
Neely, Carol Thomas. “Shakespeare’s Women: Historical Facts and Dramatic Representations.” Shakespeare’s Personality. Ed. Norman N. Holland, Sidney Homan, and Bernard J. Paris. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. 116-134.
Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. Trans. Gayle Holste. Hauppauge, NY: Barron's Educational Series, 2009. Print.
One of the most intriguing aspects of the treatment of love in As You Like It concerns the issue of gender. And this issue, for obvious reasons, has generated a special interest in recent times. The principal reason for such a thematic concern in the play is the cross dressing and role playing. The central love interest between Rosalind and Orlando calls into question the conventional wisdom about men's and women's gender roles and challenges our preconceptions about these roles in courtship, erotic love, and beyond.
Gender issues and social commentary are especially relevant in published criticism of Shakespeare's As You Like It since the beginning of the 1990's, as evidenced by the number of articles published in scholarly journals during the past twelve years. Janet Gupton's review in Theatre Journal, published in 2001as well as Louise Schleiner's article in the Shakespeare Quarterly in the fall of 1999, both deal with the treatment of gender-subjectivity.
As You Like It, by William Shakespeare, is a radiant blend of fantasy, romance, wit and humor. In this delightful romp, Rosalind stands out as the most robust, multidimensional and lovable character, so much so that she tends to overshadow the other characters in an audience's memory, making them seem, by comparison, just "stock dramatic types". Yet, As You Like It is not a stock romance that just happens to have Shakespeare's greatest female role. The other members of the cast provide a well-balanced supporting role, and are not just stereotypes. Characters whom Shakespeare uses to illustrate his main theme of the variations of love are all more than one-use cardboards, as they must be fully drawn to relate to life. Those characters most easily accused of having a stock one-dimensionality are those inessential to the theme but important to the plot and useful as convenient foils, such as Duke Frederick and Oliver de Boys. The assertion of the question deserves this quote: "You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the forest judge."