only of love and spoke of their passion in elaborate (and sometimes
awful) verse. Love at first sight was commonplace. The characters
suffered the pangs of unrequited love. In the forest settings of
these stories, you might encounter a lion, a magician, or a band of
thieves. Elizabethans would have recognized the poetic rustics
Silvius and Phebe from As You Like It as stock characters out of
such a pastoral romance. They would have enjoyed seeing Rosalind
save Orlando from becoming just another lovesick young man like
Silvius.
Many noble Elizabethan households kept professional fools such as
Touchstone for entertainment. His role was actually written for
Robert Armin, who had been a professional fool before joining
Shakespeare's acting company. Jesters occupied a special place in
Elizabethan society. They could mix with both kings and servants. As
long as they pleased their masters, they could say almost anything
they wished. Often, Shakespeare's fools tell the truth when nobody
else will. As you will see, Touchstone exposes pretension and
foolishness wherever he finds them.
The romance and humor of As You Like It are played out against a
backdrop of danger and political intrigue. Rosalind and Orlando both
flee the city under threat of death. Much is made of the "envious
court," where nobody can be trusted and where flatterers are always
seeking to add to their own power. This darker side of life was also
a part of Shakespeare's England. When Elizabeth became queen in 1558,
she inherited both religious tensions and grave financial
difficulties. Fortunately, she was a shrewd politician and
skillfully played her noblemen against each other, so that no
individual could gain enough power to threaten her.
A very real threat to Elizabeth was posed by Mary, Queen of Scots.
Until Mary's execution in 1587, Elizabeth lived with the fear that
the Roman Catholics might rally around Mary and mount a rebellion.
In this play, Duke Frederick fears that Rosalind's graces will
remind the people of her father and cause them to revolt.
So As You Like It does mirror the concerns of Shakespeare's audience.
But what about the author, what of Shakespeare the man? Very little
is actually known about him. Neither he nor anybody else of his era
ever recorded the story of his life. A few facts are known. He was
born in Stratford, a small English country town on the Avon River,
and baptized on April 26, 1564. Since infants were generally
baptized at three days, his birth date may have been April 23. His
father was John Shakespeare, a prosperous Stratford businessman and
town council member. William's mother, Mary, was the daughter of a
well-to-do landowner. William was the eldest of their six children.
Shakespeare almost certainly attended the local grammar school.
There, his studies would have included Latin, rhetoric (grammar,
composition), and literature.
