As You Like It Group

Question:

queenhell
queenhell
Student
High School - 12th Grade

To what extent can we say that As You Like It is a happy and optimistic play?

Rate question:

Posted by queenhell on Thursday August 27, 2009 at 4:28 AM and tagged with as you like it, comedy, happy, optimistic, play, shakespeare.

Answers:

  1. stefaniecpeters
    stefaniecpeters

    eNotes Editor

    Only to some extent can we say that As You Like It is a "happy" play. The biggest example of this is the character of Jaques. He is a melancholic, refusing to join in with the happiness of the rest of the inhabitants of the Forest of Arden, but instead wanting to reflect miserably on the woe of the world and even try his hand at punishing sinners.

    At the end of the play, when the god of marriage, Hymen, comes on stage to marry four couples: Rosalind and Orlando, Celia and Oliver, Touchstone and Audrey, and Phoebe and Silvius, he refuses to help them celebrate their nuptials. Instead he ends the play on a sour note, going to find the Duke Frederick who has become a hermit and to be his companion instead.

    But despite this, Jaques is a welcome presence in the play, tempering the sweetness of the romance that otherwise might have seemed too saccharine.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/as-you-like-it/jaques
    http://www.enotes.com/as-you-like-it/jaques-character-ana...
    http://www.enotes.com/as-you-like-it/themes

    Rate answer:

    Posted by stefaniecpeters on Thursday November 5, 2009 at 8:49 PM