As You Like It a Romantic Comedy free essay sample

The major conventions of Shakespearean Romantic Comedy are: The main action is about love. The would-be lovers must overcome obstacles and misunderstandings before being united in harmonious union. The ending frequently involves a parade of couples to the altar and a festive mood or actual celebration (expressed in dance, song, feast, etc. ) A Midsummer Nights Dream has four such couples (not counting Pyramus and Thisbe! ); As You Like It has four; Twelfth Night has three; etc. Frequently (but not always), it contains elements of the improbable, the fantastic, the supernatural, or the miraculous, e. . unbelievable coincidences, improbable scenes of recognition/lack of recognition, willful disregard of the social order (nobles marrying commoners, beggars changed to lords), instantaneous conversions (the wicked repent), enchanted or idealized settings, supernatural beings (witches, fairies, Gods and Goddesses). The happy ending may be brought about through supernatural or divine intervention (comparable to the deus ex machina in classical comedy, where a God appears to resolve the conflict) or may merely involve improbable turns of events. In the best of the mature comedies, there is frequently a philosophical aspect involving weightier issues and themes: personal identity; the importance of love in human existence; the power of language to help or hinder communication; the transforming power of poetry and art; the disjunction between appearance and reality; the power of dreams and illusions). As you like it is a romantic comedy. It is full of sunshine, love, laughter, and song. The predominant mood of the play is one of cheerfulness, light-hearted gaiety, and laughter.It is a pure and fun romantic comedy. It revolves around two plots. One centers on hatred and the other centers on love. The outcome of both plots reveals that love is all-important, whether it is brotherly love or romantic love. The play depicts romantic love at its best. comedy, and with more immediate success. For this his models include the dramatists Robert Greene and John Lyly, along with Thomas Nashe. The result is a genre recognizably and distinctively Shakespearean, even if he learned a lot from Greene and Lyly: the romantic comedy.As in the work of his models, Shakespeares early comedies revel in stories of amorous courtship in which a plucky and admirable young woman (played by a boy actor) is paired off against her male wooer. Julia, one of two young heroines in The Two Gentlemen of Verona (c. 1590–94), disguises herself as a man in order to follow her lover, Proteus, when he is sent from Verona to Milan. Proteus (appropriately named for the changeable Proteus of Greek myth), she discovers, is paying far too much attention to Sylvia, the beloved of Proteuss best friend, Valentine. Love and friendship thus do battle for the divided loyalties of the erring male until the generosity of his friend and, most of all, the enduring chaste loyalty of the two women bring Proteus to his senses. The motif of the young woman disguised as a male was to prove invaluable to Shakespeare in subsequent romantic comedies, including The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night. As is generally true of Shakespeare, he derived the essentials of his plot from a narrative source, in this case a long Spanish prose romance, the Diana of Jorge de Montemayor.Shakespeares most classically inspired early comedy is The Comedy of Errors (c. 1589–94). Here he turned particularly to Plautuss farcical play called the Menaechmi (Twins). The story of one twin (Antipholus) looking for his lost brother, accompanied by a clever servant (Dromio) whose twin has also disappeared, results in a farce of mistaken identities that also thoughtfully explores issues of identity and self-kno wing. The young women of the play, one the wife of Antipholus of Ephesus (Adriana) and the other her sister (Luciana), engage in meaningful dialogue on issues of wifely obedience and autonomy. Marriage resolves these difficulties at the end, as is routinely the case in Shakespearean romantic comedy, but not before the plot complications have tested the characters needs to know who they are and what men and women ought to expect from one another. Shakespeares early romantic comedy most indebted to John Lyly is Loves Labours Lost (c. 588–97), a confection set in the never-never land of Navarre where the King and his companions are visited by the Princess of France and her ladies-in-waiting on a diplomatic mission that soon devolves into a game of courtship. As is often the case in Shakespearean romantic comedy, the young women are sure of who they are and whom they intend to marry; one cannot be certain that they ever really fall in love, since they begin by knowing what they want.The young men, conversely, fall all over themselves in their comically futile attempts to eschew romantic love in favour of more serious pursuits. They perjure themselves, are shamed and put down, and are finally forgiven their follies by the women. Shakespeare brilliantly portrays male discomfiture and female self-assurance as he explores the treacherous but desirable world of sexual attraction, while the verbal gymnastics of the play emphasize the wonder and the delicious foolishness of falling in love. In The Taming of the Shrew (c. 590–94), Shakespeare employs a device of multiple plotting that is to become a standard feature of his romantic comedies. In one plot, derived from Ludovico Ariostos I suppositi (Supposes, as it had been translated into English by George Gascoigne), a young woman (Bianca) carries on a risky courtship with a young man who appears to be a tutor, much to the dismay of her father, who hopes to marry her to a wealthy suitor of his own choosing. Eventually the mistaken identities are straightened out, establishing the presumed tutor as Lucentio, wealthy and suitable enough.Simultaneously, Biancas shrewish sister Kate denounces (and terrorizes) all men. Biancas suitors commission the self-assured Petruchio to pursue Kate so that Bianca, the younger sister, will be free to wed. The wife-taming plot is itself based on folktale and ballad tradition in which men assure their ascendancy in the marriage relationship by beating their wives into submission. Shakespeare transforms this raw, antifeminist material into a study of the struggle for dominance in the marriage relationship.And, whereas he does opt in this play for male triumph over the female, he gives to Kate a sense of humour that enables her to see how she is to play the game to her own advantage as well. She is, arguably, happy at the end with a relationship based on wit and companionship, whereas her sister Bianca turns out to be simply spoiled The play is set in a duchy in France, but most of the action takes place in a location called the Forest of Arden. Frederick has usurped the Duchy and exiled his older brother, Duke Senior.The Dukes daughter Rosalind has been permitted to remain at court because she is the closest friend and cousin of Fredericks only child, Celia. Orlando, a young gentleman of the kingdom who has fallen in love at first sight of Rosalind, is forced to flee his home after being persecuted by his older brother, Oliver. Frederick becomes angry and banishes Rosalind from court. Celia and Rosalind decide to flee together accompanied by the jester Touchstone, with Rosalind disguised as a young man and Celia disguised as a poor lady.Rosalind, now disguised as Ganymede (Joves own page), and Celia, now disguised as Aliena (Latin for stranger), arrive in the Arcadian Forest of Arden, where the exiled Duke now lives with some supporters, including the melancholy Jaques, who is introduced to us weeping over the slaughter of a deer. Ganymede and Aliena do not immediately encounter the Duke and his companions, as they meet up with Corin, an impoverished tenant, and offer to buy his masters rude cottage.Audrey by Philip Richard Morris Orlando and his servant Adam (a role possibly played by Shakespeare himself, though this story is apocryphal),[1] meanwhile, find the Duke and his men and are soon living with them and posting simplistic love poems for Rosalind on the trees. Rosalind, also in love with Orlando, m eets him as Ganymede and pretends to counsel him to cure him of being in love. Ganymede says he will take Rosalinds place and he and Orlando can act out their relationship. The shepherdess Phebe, with whom Silvius is in love, has fallen in love with Ganymede (actually Rosalind), though Ganymede continually shows that he is not interested in Phebe. Touchstone, meanwhile, has fallen in love with the dull-witted shepherdess, Audrey, and tries to woo her, but eventually is forced to be married first. William, another shepherd attempts to marry Audrey as well, but is stopped by Touchstone, who threatens to kill him a hundred and 50 different ways.Finally, Silvius, Phebe, Ganymede, and Orlando are brought together in an argument with each other over who will get whom. Ganymede says he will solve the problem, having Orlando promise to marry Rosalind, and Phebe promise to marry Silvius if she cannot marry Ganymede. Orlando sees Oliver in the forest and rescues him from a lioness, causing Oliver to repent for mistreating Orlando (some directors treat this as a tale, rather than reality). Oliver meets Aliena (Celias false identity) and falls in love with her, and they agree to marry. Orlando and Rosalind, Oliver and Celia, Silvius and Phebe, and Touchstone and Audrey all are married in the final scene, after which they discover that Frederick has also repented his faults, deciding to restore his legitimate brother to the dukedom and adopt a religious life. Jaques, ever melancholy, declines their invitation to return to the court preferring to stay in the forest and to adopt a religious life. Rosalind speaks an epilogue to the audience, commending the play to both men and women in the audience.