20:38 As You Like It

Day 20 of 38:38
As You Like It

Okay, Shakespeare's brilliance lies in his verse, in his poetry, in his character creation. It doesn't lie so much in his eye for details. Many of the plays involve contradictory elements (I'm sure we can soon talk about Just How Old is Hamlet?), confusions about time, location, and others.

Rosalind is commonly perceived as being tall, but the text actually isn't 100 percent clear on her height. The note in the Arden edition sums it up excellently. The note comes at the first mention of height, when Le Beau tells Orlando that the "taller" girl is daughter to the Duke, meaning Celia. Arden says:
Shakespeare appears to follow Lodge: "I (thou seest) am of a tall stature" (sig. D3), but the word is frequently emended because it is inconsistent with Rosalind's claim to be more than common tall (1.3.112) and with Oliver's information about Celia, the woman low (4.3.86). Rosalind is not very tall (Phoebe's testimony at 3.5.119); Orlando's 'Just as high as my heart' (3.2.262) makes her, even allowing for a lover's extravagance, hardly a lamp-post. Variations in the height of different boy actors may have created inconsistencies in the text. Another meaning of tall is 'bold', usually applied to men, as (satirically) to Sir Andrew Aguecheek (TN 1.3.20), but sometimes also to 'mannish' women.


When staging this production, it has to be decided whether Orlando figures out that Ganymede is Rosalind or not, and if so, when. Textually, there is no line that suggests he's figured out the game. Quite the opposite, in fact. After all, right before the scene where Rosalind is revealed, the Duke asks Orlando whether he believes the boy (Ganymede) can do what he's promised, and Orlando replies "I sometimes do believe and sometimes do not, / As those that fear to hope, and know to fear." And while it's possible that Orlando's later line could be played as holding the game up and secretly teasing the Duke ("My lord, the first time that I ever saw him / Methought he was a brother to your daughter. / But my good lord, this boy is forest-bred / And hath been tutored in the rudiments / Of many desperate studies by his uncle, / Whom he reports to be a great magician, / Obscured in the circle of this forest."), this line seems less able to fit that interpretation.

However, I do think it is dramatically more interesting for Orlando to figure it out at some point. When have you seen Orlando's figure it out and how well did it work? I love James Shapiro's thoughts on this subject in his book 1599. He says Orlando has to figure it out at some point. If the point is too late, Orlando looks stupid and undeserving of Rosalind (as Shaw described him, a "safely stupid and totally unobservant young man"). If Orlando figures it out too early, he doesn't really learn anything and doesn't mature in his understanding of love. Shapiro's theory (though he admits that Shakespeare leaves it so uncertain he can only guess) is that Orlando first begins to figure it out during the mock wedding scene. In Elizabethan times, there was a form a betrothal that just involved swearing before a witness that you would be married. Orlando and Ganymede and Celia would be participating in a legally binding betrothal. To Shapiro, Orlando would realize that he wasn't playing anymore, as evidenced by the fact that at first he says "I will" but then says "I take thee, Rosalind, for wife."

---------------------------------
Favorite Female Character:
Rosalind
Favorite Male Character:
hmm... I guess Jacques, but I feel pretty equally about the male roles in this play.

Laugh out loud:
Touchstone This is the very false gallop of verses. Why do you infect yourself with them?
Rosalind Peace, you dull fool, I found them on a tree.
Touchstone Truly, the tree yields bad fruit.

"That's what she said!":
Rosalind I prithee take the cork out of thy mouth that I may drink thy tidings.
Celia So you may put a man in your belly.

How insulting:
Jacques let's meet as little as we can.
Orlando I do desire we may be better strangers.

Shakey loves his meta:
Duke Senior This wide and universal theatre
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in.

Oh, misogyny:
It only seems to exist when Rosalind uses it ironically
I could find in my heart to disgrace my man's apparel and to cry like a woman, but I must comfort the weaker vessel.

Boys are silly:
Rosalind Men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

Favorite Moment/Line:
I love all the speeches where Rosalind gets carried away and just keeps going. They are charming.