As You Like It, Rosalynde, and Mutuality

Abstract

Over years, critics have noted a variety of thematic oppositions in As You Like It: fortune versus nature, country versus court, a view of time medium of decay versus time medium of fulfillment, contrary notions of identity, the conspicuous narrative artifice of opening scenes versus equally prominent theatrical artifice in forest scenes, two different manipulative modes, and, most recently, concerns of a generally privileged versus the concerns of wage laborers, servants, and clowns.' Even play's title seems to refer to an opposition between audience and author, leading George Bernard Shaw, for one, to read it as a snub of audience's taste: here is what you, spectators, like (but I, playwright, do not).2 Are oppositions placed in a kind of balance by end of play (at least in character of Rosalind), dissolved by play's skeptical treatment of seemingly clear-cut distinctions, or are they necessarily partial and constrained gestures toward recognizing value of what might have seemed to Shakespeare and his audience to be culturally subversive attitudes?3 It all appears to hinge on whether we think Shakespearean comedy creates harmony among discordant elements, acts like a solvent on social constructions of difference, or serves to contain (though not always completely) threats to dominant social and cultural order its characters might sometimes express or embody. None of these formulations, however, addresses what I would argue is most important aspect of drama: dynamic nature of relationship between audience and play, spectator