As You Like It (Vol. 80) | Thomas Kelly (essay date winter 1973)
Thomas Kelly (essay date winter 1973)
SOURCE: Kelly, Thomas. “Shakespeare's Romantic Heroes: Orlando Reconsidered.” Shakespeare Quarterly 24, no. 1 (winter 1973): 12-24.
[In the following essay, Kelly argues that unlike most of Shakespeare's romantic heroes, As You Like It's Orlando possesses considerable self-control and self-awareness.]
The romantic heroes of Shakespeare's comedies have always enjoyed a questionable importance within their own plays. The heroines easily eclipse them and even the fools—Dogberry, Feste, and Bottom—have commonly commanded more attention than the generally innocuous young men. A further irony is that when we do notice one of Shakespeare's romantic heroes it is often for an unheroic trait. Lingering about most of them is a hint of something disagreeable. Several, for example, are at best fickle. Lysander, Bassanio, and Claudio have the excuse of varying degrees of duress, and in their cases...
[The entire page is 6670 words long]
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