As You Like It | Jaques

In the first excerpt, Oscar James Campbell interprets Jaques from a historical perspective, noting events in Shakespeare's own lifetime that strongly influenced his dramatization of the character. In the second excerpt, Harold C. Goddard maintains that Jaques cannot completely withdraw from the society he hates because he needs an audience for his tirades against humanity.

Oscar James Campbell
[Campbell interprets Jaques from a historical perspective, noting events in Shakespeare's own lifetime that strongly influenced his dramatization of the character. According to the critic, Jaques reflects the stock Elizabethan literary figure of the malcontent traveler who, upon returning home from his sojourn to other countries, is corrupt, bitter, and bored with life. Jaques's melancholy, like that of the character-type in Elizabethan literature, is thus both real and exaggerated, Campbell states. The critic further maintains,...

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