In Shakespearean drama, the forest functions as a disordered place whose spirit of misrule, paradoxically, allows room for some right order to reassert itself.
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The second act of Shakespeare’s comedy “As You Like It” finds the play’s central characters exiled or fleeing the court of the usurping Duke Frederick, to wander lost in the Forest of Arden. In Shakespearean drama, the forest functions as a disordered place whose spirit of misrule, paradoxically, allows room for some right order to reassert itself. Here, in Arden, amid various amorous confusions, the exiled Duke Senior reconstitutes his faithful retinue.
Amiens, one of that retinue, is given to bursts of song. His companion, a nobleman named Jacques, is given to mood swings, which provide a counterpoint to Amiens’ songs. When Amiens sings a merry song about free love in the greenwood, Jacques begs for more, to work himself into a satisfying depression. “I can suck melancholy out of a song,” he boasts, “as a weasel sucks eggs.”
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By GEORGE WILLIS
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By BRADLEY CORTRIGHT
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By A.R. HOFFMAN
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