Is the Forest of Arden a Place of Liberation?

University Degree Linguistics, Classics and related subjects

This essay attempts to explore the possibilities of the Forest of Arden as a place of liberation in Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’. I will be researching the historical and classical side of the play and considering the possible reasons for Shakespeare’s use of the original setting with little change or adaptation.

The original idea for ‘As You Like It’ was taken from Thomas Lodge’s ‘Rosalynde’ published in 1590. The location of the story in a forest is Lodge’s idea but Shakespeare named his forest Arden possibly after the Forest of Arden in Warwickshire or as some critics believe Ardennes in Belgium. At the time there was a movement in England to consider rural life as glorious and free. This reflects the classical use of the countryside as a ‘sunlit, idealized existence of love and song’ (Drabble and Stringer, 1987) known as pastoral. Originally a Roman classical form, pastoral became fashionable during the Renaissance in Italy through Petrarch and others who composed Latin eclogues to their lovers featuring rustic figures, shepherds, shepherdesses, music, song and sheep. Shakespeare uses this convention in other plays such as ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ to emphasise the contrast between different worlds.

Apart from it being a fashionable form, the pastoral was a subtle way to make careful political comment about the current situation with a degree of safety. By 1599 when ‘As You Like It’ was probably first performed, Queen Elizabeth I was old and without an heir and the previous settled political situation was looking more insecure. Critical comments about the regime were likely to end in imprisonment or even execution, therefore Shakespeare sets his play in an area unlikely to be linked to the London court scene. Lisa Hopkins of Sheffield Hallam University believes that Rosalind’s comment in Act 5, scene 3 to Silvius ‘Pray you no more of this, 'tis like the howling of Irish wolves against the moon’ is a criticism of the ruling regime, given the civil unrest in Ireland at the time. The moon was a commonly used persona for Queen Elizabeth I used by Ralegh and other contemporaries. In the Forest of Arden, the characters are sheltered from the familiar rules and conventions of the court. The characters who live in the forest behave differently; they do not conform to what was considered proper at the time, for example, Ganymede and Phoebe, Phoebe chases Ganymede, this is unusual for the time as it was thought improper for the woman to chase the man; it was a man’s job to woo the lady. This indicates a sort of primitive life and disregard for the rules. Unlike the rustics in ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’, the shepherds and shepherdesses who live in the Forest of Arden are not used in the play just for comic effect, they seem to know they are simple forest dwellers but they have a degree of self confidence and respect for their surroundings and discuss love on the same level as the courtiers. ‘But if thy love were ever like mine - As sure I think did never man love so - ’ Silvius Act 2, Scene 4. Corin also has a lot of self respect and pride in what he does; ‘I earn that I eat, get that I wear; owe no man hate, envy no mans happiness…and the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes graze and my lambs suck. Act 3, scene 2

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The characters perceive the forest as a place of safety in troubled times and they view their life in the forest as a positive choice. ‘Now go we in content to liberty, and not to banishment.’ Act 1, scene 3. This comment is made by Celia as they leave the shelter of the castle. This reflects Celia’s optimistic outlook. The Duke Senior too feels safe in the forest and he says in Act 2, scene i ‘Are not these woods more free from peril than the envious court?’ His admiration for the natural world ignores the privations of cold and loneliness finding ‘tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones and good in everything’ Act 2, scene 1. The song sung by Amiens also speaks of the forest as a safe place despite the weather; ‘Here shall he see No enemy, But winter and rough weather’ Act 2 Scene 4. Celia perhaps views the forest as a temporary arrangement, ‘I like this place, and willingly could waste my time in it.’ Act 2, scene 5. Touchstone believes that court is the best place and tells Corin that he is damned because he has never been to court. His liberation in the forest come later when he realise for all his cynical ways he loves (or lusts after) Audrey, the country bumpkin, although he perhaps wishes she was more intellectual. His entry into the forest is due to his loyalty to his master’s daughter.

Arden as a place of liberation can mean safety from persecution and also a place to be more individual than was customary in the court. Shakespeare uses the device of a different world to emphasise and define differences. When Celia and Rosalind leave the court and go into the forest, Celia changes her name to Aliena; this incorporates the word Alien, indicating the girls’ position in the forest as foreign and unfamiliar. Rosalind’s choice of alternative identities is very significant in the play. Ganymede was the cupbearer and beloved of Jove in Greek mythology and is a standard symbol of homosexual love. ‘In the context of the play, her choice of an alter ego contributes to a continuum of sexual possibilities.’ (Spark Notes) Rosalind represents Ganymede because her beauty shines through her disguise; Ganymede was described as a beautiful boy. The dramatic possibilities in production of a boy playing a girl dressed as a boy were tremendously comic, both to contemporaries and modern cinema audiences (Gwyneth Paltrow as Viola as Thomas Kent as Juliet in the film Shakespeare in Love). Rosalind is much more liberated by men’s clothing and takes a masculine role, leading the expedition. ‘But I must comfort the weaker vessel, as doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat.’ Act 2, scene 4. This shows Rosalind taking the lead and trying to show courage for Celia emphasising Shakespeare’s view; men were in charge.

The isolation from the court means that the natives live by different rules although they have some awareness of status as in Act 2, Scene 4 Touchstone refers to himself and Rosalind and Celia as ‘your betters’ to Corin and he replies ‘else are they very wretched’. Although the duke and his men are dwelling in the forest they still keep their manners and courtly ways as gentlemen as Duke senior says to Orlando ‘Art thou thus boldened, man by this distress? Or else a rude despiser of good manners,’ Act 2, scene 7. Jacques is very melancholy character, does he not like the forest and prefers court? He maybe feels more imprisoned in the forest than he does in court because although throughout the forest he can come and go as he pleases he is unable to leave the forest and return to civilisation and the court.

Shakespeare has many references to nature and the beauty of the forest. ‘Where in the purlieus of this forest stands, a sheepcote fenced about with olive trees?’ Act 4, scene 3 Perhaps this reflects his personal feeling of liberation as a country boy. He also has strong knowledge of the shepherd’s life. The lion could be another joke in the play you would have never found a lion in a forest, not even nowadays; lions live in jungles, not in Warwickshire or even Belgium. It is as improbable to find a lion in a forest as it is for two brothers to be the best of friends when once before they were trying to kill each other. All Corin’s natural philosophy is routed to the land and mainly sheep. ‘Good pasture makes fat sheep’ Act 3 Scene 2 is as profound a comment as Jacques’s melancholy and Touchstone’s wit.

In conclusion the Forest of Arden represents a sort of Utopia for some of the characters, for Celia it is just a brief rural excursion, for Rosalind and her father it is a refuge away from the court’s political unrest, for Orlando it is another sanctuary and place to explore his feelings in solitude. For Shakespeare the Forest of Arden is a chance to cautiously probe the iniquities of the a distasteful political regime, while amusing both upper and lower classes. The word liberation, meaning to set free, implies a previous captivity or isolation, indicating that the characters who go to the Forest are leaving a state of imprisonment. Celia is imprisoned by her father and is liberated on entry to the forest, by a sense of independence. Rosalind is separated from her father and she believes, her love for Orlando. The shepherds and shepherdesses who live in the forest have the independence and freedom coveted by the exiles and Celia and Rosalind, yet are not free to exist without hard work. Liberation only really exists in the minds of those who choose to use it.

Bibliography

Hopkins, Lisa. "Orlando and the Golden World: The Old World and the New in As You Like It." Early Modern Literary Studies 8.2 (September, 2002): 2.1-21 <URL: >.

Abrams et al (1979) The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Norton: New York

M. Drabble & J. Stringer (1990) The Concise Oxford Companion To English Literature, Oxford University Press: Oxford

Shakespeare (1993) As You Like it, Oxford University Press: Oxford

John Madden (1998) Shakespeare In Love, Universal,

Basil Coleman (1978) As You Like It, BBC