Senior English 243

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As You Like ItREADING#3 2.1-2.6

2.1—The Forest

  1. Meet Duke Senior: His opening comment on his life in exile.
  2. Paraphrase Duke Senior’s main message in this opening speech that he makes to the men who are also exiles from the court.

[OPTIONAL/HONORS] Read over the poetic language and figures of speech in these first seventeen lines. What is striking to you about the language employed?

  1. What is the translation that Amiens refers to when he responds to the Duke’s opening speech?
  1. Deer.
  2. “And yet…” (22). What does Duke Senior have to say about the “dappled fools” (2.1.22), the deer that he’s eager to kill for a meal? (Keep your eye on the role that deer in particular and animals in general play in the play.)
  1. Which of Shakespeare’s words effectively evoke the emotional scene of the “poor sequestered stag” (34) that Amiens sees earlier in the day?

[OPTIONAL/HONORS] Usurper. How is Duke Senior like his brother, Duke Frederick, according to Amiens’s report of Jacques’s response, which “pierceth through / The body of country, city, court, / Yea, and of this our life” (61-63)?

2.2—Back at the Court

  1. What is the reason for Duke Frederick’s hot temper in this short scene and how does he plan to cool it?

[OPTIONAL/HONORS] What is the effect on the audience/reader of the tone of 2.2 coming on the heels of 2.1?

2.3

  1. “O, what a world is this when what is comely / Envenoms him that bears it!” (2.3.14-15). How does Orlando’s servant Adam see Orlando’s “virtues” (12) as “traitors” (13)?

[OPTIONAL/HONORS] At first, Orlando is reluctant to leave his home with his brother, who plans to “burn the lodging where you use to lie” (24) and says to Adam, “I rather will subject me to the malice / Of a diverted blood and bloody brother” (37-38). What do you think the audience is meant to think of this expression?

  1. Orlando praises Adam, “[H]ow well in thee appears / The constant service of the antique world” (57-58) and conjures an olden world where human virtues were great than they are today. How are “these times” (60) different, according to Orlando, from the olden ones? (Or is he only speaking about the world of the city/court?)

[Just note the lovely moment of Orlando’s acquiescence in “But come thy ways. We’ll go along together…We’ll light upon some settled low content” (67-69) as the two depart from the world of the court toward a humbler state of being.]

2.4—Back in the Forest

[OPTIONAL/HONORS] Touchstone’s comment upon the threesome’s arrival in the Forest of Arden—“When I was at home I was in a better place, but travelers must be content” (2.4.16-17)—implies an invitation for the audience to compare the two worlds. What meaning would you give to his line, “but travelers must be content”? (That is, how would you direct him to say it?)

  1. The conversation between Silvius and Corin is the introduction of the court people to the pastoral, the world of the shepherds. How would you direct their discussion on love—idealizing the innocent and honorable lives of shepherds or as a satire of the pastoral, in which the shepherds appear foolish. Explain your thinking.
  1. Explain: “Alas, poor shepherd, searching of thy wound, / I have by hard adventure found mine own” (43-44).

[Note: The silliness of love: “We that are true lovers run into strange capers. But as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly (54-55) Remember that the play, in addition to being about the worlds or the court and the country, is also about LOVE. There are four love pairings in the play. Now we’ve got two.]

[OPTIONAL/HONORS] What does the shepherd Corin say about his own “fortunes” (80) in lines 78-89 (“Fair sir I pity her” > “That you will feed on”) that debunks the golden image of the pastoral life of shepherds?

  1. Celia, as Aliena, makes her first impression of the forest known: “I like this place, / And willingly could waste my time in it” (97-98). How does this comment fit well with the city-dweller’s conventional perspective of life in the country?

2.5

[OPTIONAL/HONORS] Music. As You Like It is one of Shakespeare’s most musical plays. And now we meet Jacques the Melancholy, who “can suck melancholy out of a song as a weasel sucks eggs” (2.5. 13-14). In each of the three places for song in Scene 5, find at least one statement/line that represents the Duke’s earlier thoughts (Scene 1) that “sweet are the uses of adversity” (2.1.12)? Why might Jacques want to hear “more”?

2.6

  1. List the words that Orlando uses in his speech to Adam that suggest his first impression of the forest.

Passage of Interest

Look back at the questions and choose ONE question that you think represents the most interesting or significant moment of the reading. Explain your reasoning.

OR choose ONE phrase or sentence from the reading that interests you for ANY reason and that you want to discuss with a classmate, the teacher, or the entire class. Maybe it’s a line that you don’t understand. Write it down, along with the page number and the explanation for your choosing it. FILL THE GIVEN LINES BELOW.