Themes: Wordplay and Language

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Lastly, there is an enormous amount of wordplay in the text of As You Like It. In Act II, scene v, for example, Jaques sings a parody song in which the nonsense word "ducdame" is repeated three times. When he is asked what a ducdame is, Jaques replies that it is "a Greek invocation, to call fools into a circle" (60). This type of amusing banter is the stock and trade of Touchstone, the great corrupter of language, a fool who is able to make his way through life on puns, malaprops, and the jestful use of language.

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