AYL Final Four (Todd Douglas)
In
As You Like It, love is seen as a
very consuming thing. The characters in the play have an idea of what it means
to be a “true” lover; according to Silvius:
O, thou didst then never love so heartily!
If thou rememb'rest not the slightest folly
That ever love did make thee run into,
Thou hast not lov'd;
Or if thou hast not sat as I do now,
Wearing thy hearer in thy mistress' praise,
Thou hast not lov'd;
This speech in compases love in the play because love each
of the characters believe that love has some special quality to it. Most of
them believes that love can drive a person to be irrational. Rosalind (as Ganymede)
tells Orlando “Then your hose should be
ungartered, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied, and
everything about you demonstrating a careless desolation.” Here Rosalind poses
the question that if Orlando is so in love, why isn’t he a mess? When speaking
of her own affections for him she says “Oh, they take the part of a better
wrestler than myself.”
Orlando also becomes
consumed by his passion, and can barely speak in the first act when he first
comes into contact with Rosalind, even though he’s attracted to her. The idea
of a tortured love sick lover continues throughout the play. Silvius is the
perfect example of this, as the young shepard loves a woman that wants nothing
to do with him. In in his speech in Act 2 scene 4, he believes “no man has ever
loved so.” He follows her around begging her to give him a chance.
Touchstone, on the
other hand, can’t make up his mind when to marry Audrey. He goes around in search
of the perfect wedding venue. Celia and Oliver waist no time getting to the
altar. Even though they don’t meet each other till the end of the play, they
decide to get married the quickest of any of the characters.
Love in As You Like It is irrational, and the
couples in As You Like It do some “unnecessary” things to get love from their
partner. Rather than just marrying them from the beginning, they put each other
through a game of sport showing just how insane love is.
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