The Trope of the Pastoral in Shakespeare’s As You Like It

Shakespeare’s As You Like It is arguably a play about life without social constraint in a pastoral setting. We have various characters banished from courtly life, but all of them are happy to take up the pastoral life: Duke Senior comments that everyone lives like brothers, and hears “books in running brooks”. Rosalind and Orlando find each other in the forest and in each other find true love. Adam and Corin, two old men, also find happiness in serving their new masters. The play ends in four marriages, and even Hymen, the god of marriage, comes and sings for them. From these facts, one can perhaps draw the conclusion that pastoral life is possible, if only human beings are willing to give up their courtly life style. This reading, however, is insensitive to Shakespeare’s real treatment of the pastoral trope. The play appears to have a happy ending, but as always, happy endings in Shakespeare are almost never happy. And upon closer examination of the play, one finds that Shakespeare is making the opposite statement about the pastoral ideal: instead of men living in a state of nature, the pastoral trope is actually a reflection of men in society. In other words, men are not escaping society in the Forest of Arden; rather, they are rebuilding the society they left, only they do a better job of it and all conflicts are resolved in the end. Through a careful reading of the play, we realize that the problems the shepherds and shepherdesses encounter are exactly the same as those in the courtiers.

Duke Senior’s opening speech in Act II, scene i describes the pastoral fantasy of equality between all men and the pleasure of being in touch with nature. Amiens immediately responds by saying that he “would not change it”. One can detect a tone of bitterness (and one can certainly perform this line that way) in Amiens’ reply, suggesting that courtly life is full of power struggles and hierarchies. But classism is not a problem that any of the shepherds escaped; in fact, the problem is still very subtly embedded in the speech of the Duke. For example, in Act II, scene vii, when the Duke is weary of Jaques’ melancholic contemplation of a fool, he switches his address to Jaques from “you” to “thou”, as if he is his servant. The same thing applies in the same scene when Adam is carried in by Orlando. Adam also receives the Duke’s “thou”. The Duke certainly may say that there is no class struggle in the forest because he is the one in charge – he can drop and reclaim his title whenever he wants.

Corin is also keenly aware of the economic aspect of the pastoral life. In Act II, scene iv, when Rosalind asks for hospitality, Corin tells the travelers that he has no means of providing hospitality. Corin is also very aware of the economic situation of his farm. He knows that the farm he is working on is a good farm and that it would sell for a good profit. By insisting on mentioning the soil condition he shows his consciousness of him as his former master’s agent and servant. Later in Act III, scene ii, we hear from Corin that he passively accepts his misfortunes. One cannot help but note certain sadness in his condition: being a servant, he cannot help but imagine what his master might demand of him and what he must helplessly reproduce for his master. Of course, this is purely textual speculation; on the other hand, it could be the case that Corin is just trying to convince himself that he is happy as a servant. Hence in the pastoral setting of As You Like It, the problem of class and power hierarchy is not dispelled; rather it is dutifully reproduced, but behind the wonderful disguises of a seemingly magnanimous Duke and a resignedly happy shepherd.

The problem of gender also reproduces itself in the play. Gender is a social expectation of what the sexes should do. The obvious romantic courtly trope is reproduced comically in the relationship between Silvius and Phoebe. Silvius is the romantic lover who loves Phoebe so much that any one of her negative facial reactions would kill him. (This is the same for Orlando, who, in Act IV, scene i, claims that Rosalind’s frown would kill him. Rosalind immediately replies that no man in the history of the world has died for his love.) Silvius, of course, has the entire tradition of courtly romantic poetry to back him up. And we should note that this is a courtly tradition. Silvius, then, is doing exactly what the male courtly lover should be doing: woo the “beautiful” lady. Phoebe, in turn, is in her bound as the courtly beloved who rejects the lover. Much of the time romantic poetry is about love unattained. But when Ganymede enters the scene and Phoebe actively seeks out Ganymede’s love in a letter delivered by Silvius in Act IV, scene i, Phoebe, who is no longer abiding to the rules of courtship, must be punished. And she is punished in the end by giving her unwillingly to Silvius.

Shakespeare makes a far more severe criticism of the problem of gender in a patriarchal society with the character Rosalind. Shakespeare seems to be ahead of the world by half a millennium when he realizes that gender is, as Butler argues in Gender Trouble, performative, and that they become essentialized only because of severe punishment on those who step outside of their bound (e.g. Phoebe). Rosalind shows that anyone, with enough courage and ability to “counterfeit”, can perform a gender role. Whether Orlando knows by the very end of the play that Ganymede is a woman is up to interpretation; but we can certainly see that Orlando has no idea that Ganymede is Rosalind. In Act IV, scene i, Rosalind – “uncommonly tall” – takes her performance to uncommon height by imitating misogyny in her speech; she does such a good job that even Celia complains of her misuse of her sex. Rosalind’s mimicry becomes a mockery of the misogynists. Of course, Rosalind is an exception; we have seen that every other character in the forest conforms to the gender role as given by courtly society.

Other aspects of courtly life are not absent in the pastoral setting of this play. They are either reduced to humour, not taken seriously or safely symbolic. In the first instance, I am referring to Touchstone’s threats to William in Act V, scene i. Touchstone, in order to scare William the shepherd off from Audrey, threatens to kill him in various and many ways. We are, of course, meant to laugh at this; on the other hand, this shows that even in the Forest of Arden human violence is still possible. The second instance refers to Jaques’ comment in Act IV, scene ii, referring to a lord who has killed a deer. Jaques suggests that the lord should be celebrated like a Roman conqueror. Again, Jaques’ remark is meant to be funny and not taken seriously, but it does show that for these lords, hunting is a conquest of nature. These lords are not living like Robin Hood; they are imperialists making conquests; contrary to Robin Hood’s gang, hunting is an aristocratic game, not a means of survival. The final instance refers to Orlando’s rescue of his brother Oliver from a green snake (representing envy) and a lioness (representing pride). In the Forest of Arden, these forces are externalized, and hence they could be fought off. But these same forces are the ones that plague Oliver in his courtly life. In this instance, we can see that courtly and pastoral lives are the same in its essence; the only difference is that in a pastoral tale these forces are to be read only symbolically.

Indeed we can see that Shakespeare’s usage of the pastoral trope is a reversal of its typical meaning. As You Like It is not a play about the beauty and wonders of the pastoral life; rather it is a reflection of the courtly life in comic disguise. The play ends with four marriages, but if we examine these marriages carefully, we can see that apart from Rosalind and Orlando’s marriage, the other three are potentially mishaps. Celia and Oliver’s marriage is unconvincing (and even Orlando raises such doubt in Act V, scene ii). Phoebe’s marriage is her punishment. Audrey’s marriage to Touchstone does not suggest a happy ending; Touchstone attempts to scam the marriage in the play, and one wonders if he is going to abandon her in the near future. In As You Like It Shakespeare raises his critical concern for the problems of social and gender politics.