How does Shakespeare present the two different worlds of court life and the rural idyll of the Golden Age in As You Like It

Authors Avatar

How does Shakespeare present the 2 different worlds of court life and the rural idyll of the “Golden Age” in As You Like It

 

In Shakespeare’s play As You Like It Shakespeare presents the two different worlds of court life and the country life by making the court a place of corruption. With People like Oliver and his attempt to Burn Orlando alive in his stable and getting Charles the wrestler to kill Orlando in a wrestling match

“And this night he means to burn the lodging where you use to lie, and you within it. If he fail of that, he will have other means to cut you off.”

This also shows that the court can be a very violent place if you are in a bad position.

 

Whereas the country is a place of peace and perfection as Duke Senior and his lords comment upon

 

“Hath not old custom made this life more sweet than that of painted pomp”

That shows that the court is a place of happiness but material happiness, and that the country is a place of real happiness. This is also a reference to the golden age,the golden age was a time when people believed that the world was timeless with no seasons,and people thought that food never grew, it was just there and nobody aged. In the Shakespearian times people tended to write about the golden age.

Also another reference to the golden age in this case was when Orlando responds to Rosalind saying    “there is no clock in the forest” there are many of these references in the play which also adds to the fact that Shakespeare believes that the country is the equivalent to the golden age.

Join now!

But at the same time there is also danger which in this case is the lion and the snake “I thought thy heart had been wounded with the claws of a lion” This tells us that nowhere in the world, even in the country is perfect.

Also the Court has been often described as a pompous place filled with pompous people, like for instance throughout the play Touchstone has acted in that way who calls when Corin asks who’s there he replies “your better sir”

              In this play Shakespeare intended to show that no paradise is perfect by placing ...

This is a preview of the whole essay