As You Like It
...of encounters." Consider some of the encounters presented in the play, and their significance to its insight into human life.
"Man in his Time plays many parts , his Acts being seven ages." Here we are given two different worlds, with colourful characters ranging from "the Lover sighing like Furnace with a woeful Ballad" to the "Last scene of all" when Man revert to their "second Childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans Eyes, sans Taste, sans everything."
The stage in the Courts and Forest of Arden served not to dish out mere swashbuckling heroes or heroines . In fact, we are presented with the likes of romantic lovers like Orlando and Rosalind. The emphasis on heroism and bravery is left to its minimum and usually these deeds are plot-movers, used to further the play. Amor Vincit Omnia is never more approriate to describe this play .Love is one of the basis of human life and it is usually through love and love-lost that one can gain an insight into the various characteristics of life. "There is sure another Flood toward, and these couples are coming to the Ark" , abundant love is illustrated by the numerous lovers in the play. Yet love is not merely romantic love, it also encompasses "sisterly love" , brothery love, love between companions and even love in the form of loyalty between the master and his servant. The play is opened with a scene depicting love-lost.Brotherly love ceased to exist and in the case of the brothers, Orlando and Oliver ,it breds evil. Oliver felt that he is "altogther misprized" by his "gentle never school'd and yet learned full of noble devices" brother, Orlando .In Oliver's jealousy fit, he first tried to kill Orlando through manipulating Charles the wrestler and later, attempted to set fire to Orlando's lodgings.
This encounter parallels an incident when Duke Frederick chids Celia ," she robs thee of thy name."...
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