Comment on the important themes in As
You Like It.
Shakespeare’s As You Like It is a romantic comedy of
love. The theme of love in As
You Like It is central to the play, and nearly every scene
makes reference to it in one way or another. However, there are themes
of the malleability of the human experience and city life versus country life
besides the theme of love and they are equally important so far as the theme of
the play is concerned. Let us discuss all the major themes in the play:
The Delights of Love
As You Like It spoofs many of the conventions of poetry and
literature dealing with love, such as the idea that love is a disease that
brings suffering and torment to the lover, or the assumption that the male
lover is the slave or servant of his mistress. These ideas are central features
of the courtly love tradition, which greatly influenced European literature for
hundreds of years before Shakespeare’s time. In As You Like It, characters lament the suffering caused by their love, but these
laments are all unconvincing and ridiculous. While Orlando’s metrically
incompetent poems conform to the notion that he should “live and die
[Rosalind’s] slave,” these sentiments are roundly ridiculed (III.ii.142). Even Silvius, the
untutored shepherd, assumes the role of the tortured lover, asking his beloved
Phoebe to notice “the wounds invisible / That love’s keen arrows make” (III.v.31–32). But Silvius’s
request for Phoebe’s attention implies that the enslaved lover can loosen the
chains of love and that all romantic wounds can be healed—otherwise, his
request for notice would be pointless. In general, As You Like It breaks with the courtly love tradition by
portraying love as a force for happiness and fulfillment and ridicules those
who revel in their own suffering.
