“The harmony of the ending

finally includes more than the joining :

in marriage : it involves full
restoration of social order in the broadest terms”.

Discuss the comic vision of “As you like it”, in the light of the above.

As you like it is the sweetest and happiest of Shakespeare’s comedies, no one

suffers, lives intensely or is there any tragic interest.

It is gracefully mirthful, exquisitely sprightly, the songs are simple solos and
duets.

The wit of touchstone is not mere clownage but a dainty absurdity as is the
melancholy of Jacques.

Rosalind, Orlando and Celia are the figures who quicken and spirits as is the
music, which knows a little of the passions and sorrows of the world.

Bradley in the famous Oxford lectures tributes that AYLI contains the trust
expression of Shakespeare’s habitual nature and temper, if not the fullest pictures of
his mind.

It plays on the erratic nature of fortune and the hardness and ingratitude of
man but the one who reads it has a smooth brow, smiling lips and a light heart.

It is full of sweetness, romance, fun, humour of various kinds and delights in the
oddities of human nature, love, high spirit and patience.

It breathes the serene holiday mood of the country side and portrays the
escape from the hectic life of the cities.

A Y L I describes escapism as a philosophy in the living of the old Duke and his
retinue, but Orlando leads them back to healthy, optimistic everyday reality.

Most of the scenes are delicate and tranquil pastorals, the play is the gayest of
Shakespeare. Wit flashes brightly from beginning to end and pleasant humour plays
over every character.
 When Rosalind meets Orlando love develops but does not dim the humour. It is
swift and various as sumones lightning.

The harmony of the ending includes more than joining in marriage, but full
restoration of social order in the broadest terms, which manifests itself in matrimonial
harmony, love and sacrifice.
A) “Oh my America ! My-new-found-land,
My Kingdom, safeliest when with one man
manned,
My nine of precious stones, my empery;
How blest an I in this discovering thee! “
These lines have been taken from Elegy to his mistress by John Donne. This
poem revels in its magnificent bawdiness and poetical explicitness. Poet Donne
makes the theme of admiring a woman and entertainingly new through his use of
extended metaphor or conceit.
The poem starts off with a playful couplet similes describing the ladies dress
and body as “Off with that girdle, like heaven’s zone glistering, But a far fairer
world encompassing”. But these are mere enticing comments compared to the
full poetic force that follow him.
The first conceit compares the experience of caressing his mistress to
discovering and conquering of new land. It is extraordinary that the poet
compares exploring and relating with his wife as equal to exploring of new country
and claiming it as his woman. Even now this metaphor retains its dreams.
Constantly appearing in romantic poetry.

B) Write a short note on the portrayal of Stella in Astrophil and Stella.

This sequence in the poem by the poet Philip Sydney is not a realistic
autobiography of a man but about a person who is attracted to and in pursuit of a
married woman, called Stella.
As his pursuit is in progress, he is filled with hopes one minute and despair
the next minute. As the woman is constantly refusing him, he feels angry and
offended but does not lose hope.
Incidentally, Stella is modelled on Penelope Devereux, who was supposed to
marry Philip Sidney in real life but was forced to marry another rich man called
Lord Rich.
Astrophil’s actions apparently seems to be forgiven by some critics because
he is in any way driven by love. In fact Sidney’s depiction of Astrophil makes some
critics empathize with him.
 The impossibility of a successful relationship in such a case is highlighted in
the sonnet title itself. Normally, sonnet sequences are entitled with only the
lady’s name but in this poem it is entitled with both the man and the lady. Other
disjunctions are the titles holding both a Greek name (Astrophil) and a Latin name
(Stella). Again the use of ‘and’ since at the two people being a couple like Romeo
and Juliet put in relation but in reality there were not.
Moreover, both Astrophil and Stella mean star which suggests the
impossible great distance between them.
Astrophil’s obsession with conquering Stella is further amplified when he
invokes Morpheus, the son of Somnus, god of sleep hoping that he will being
Stella to him but the god of dreams can bring Stella only in his dreams but not in
real life.

C) “But mistress, Know yourself, Down on your knees,

And thank Heaven fasting, for a good man’s love;
For I must tell you friendly in your ear,
Sell when you can, you are not for all markets.
These lines have been taken from “As you Like it” by Shakespeare - Act 3
scene 5. Rosalind, who in disguise as a _______ called Ganymede is speaking
these lines to Phoebe as she continuously ignores Silvius, and his love for her.
Rosalind asked Phoebe not to be proud of her beauty so much that she will expect
Silvius worship her and she also _______ Silvius asking why are you following her?
You are a thousand times better than her. It is fools like you who are marrying bad
women, who are proud and who get their exaggerated image of beauty from the
admiration of the men.
D) Critically examine the significance of Jacques.
The essentially healthy emotional intelligence of Rosalind and Orlando and
their suitability for each other emerge from their separate encounters with Jaques
(in some editions Jacques), the melancholy ex-courtier who is part of Duke
Senior’s troupe in the forest. Both Rosalind and Orlando take an instant dislike to
Jaques (which is mutual). And in that dislike we are invited to see something
vitally right about the two of them.
For Jaques is, in effect, the opposite of everything Rosalind stands for. He is
a moody cynic, who likes to look at life and draw from it poetical contemplations
at the generally unsatisfactory nature of the world. He is, in a sense, an initial
Hamlet-like figure (the comparison is frequently made), someone without any
motivating erotic joy, who compensates for his inadequacy by trying to drag
everything down to the level of his empty emotions and by verbalizing at length in
poetical images. He takes some pride in what he calls his very own brand of
melancholy which can suck the joy out of life as a weasel sucks the protein out of
an egg (an interesting image of the destruction of new living potential), and he
spends his time wallowing in it. His own social desire seems to be to find
someone else to wallow in the same emotional mud as he does. But the spirits of
the other characters, especially of Rosalind and Orlando, are too vital and creative
to respond favourably to Jaques’s attempts to cut life down to fit his limited
moods.
That judgment no doubt sounds quite harsh. And perhaps it is, for Jaques is
a relatively harmless person, who deceives no one (nor does he try to), and his
poetical reflections, like Hamlet’s, are often seductive. But we should not let the
fame of some of his utterances (particularly the famous “Seven Ages of Man”
speech in 2.7, a frequently anthologized piece of so-called Shakespearean
“wisdom”) conceal the fact that his approach to life is thoroughly negative. He
sees no value in anything other than calling attention to the world’s deficiencies.
He does not recognize in the fellowship, music, and love all around him any
countervailing virtues.
This point is made really explicit at the very end of the “Seven Ages of Man”
speech. As Jaques concludes his cynical evaluation of the emptiness of human life
by talking about how in old age men become useless lumps of flesh (“Sans teeth,
sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything”), Orlando enters carrying Adam. The latter
is the living denial of everything Jaques has just said, for Adam is very old, but has,
actively striven to help Orlando with generosity, love and a sense of duty, qualities
which confer upon him an emphatic and obvious value. The dramatic irony in that
entrance points us to the severely limited and limiting understanding of the world
which Jaques has just uttered.