Abstract
Like the members of a family, every one of Shakespeare’s plays has a character of its own, and also a family resemblance to his other plays. Language, prosody, conventions, attitudes to authority, the length of plays, scenes, speeches — these and many other components tell us ‘This is one of Shakespeare’s plays. No one else could have written it.’ Plays in the same genre can be particularly close. If we want to identify the distinctive character of a play it helps to compare it with its immediate siblings — for example, to consider As You Like It in relation to other romantic comedies, in particular the great comedies written within a few years of it. The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado and Twelfth Night have much in common with As You Like It, like four sisters: to understand the special charm of one, as any producer of the play or literary critic must try to do, we may begin by placing it beside the others and asking why it differs, in so many finely nuanced ways, from its nearest relatives.
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Notes
Norman Rabkin, Shakespeare and the Problem of Meaning (Chicago and London, 1981), chap. z. Revised version of an article that appeared in Shakespeare Ouarterly z8 (1977) z79–96•
Masetield, Wtlliam Jhakespeare (home University Library, n.d.), p. Iz2; Herschel Baker in The Riverside Shakespeare (second edition, 1997) p. 975.
See Lawrence Stone, The Crisis of the Aristocracy I558–1641 (Oxford, 1965), chap. xi, ‘Marriage and the Family’.
Derek Traversi, Shakespeare from ‘Richard II’ to ‘Henry V’ (1957), p. 197.
Anne Barton, ‘The King Disguised’ in The Triple Bond, ed. Joseph G. Price, 1975, pp. 9z—I17•
For other discussions of Chorus see G. P. Jones, ‘Henry V: The Chorus and the Audience’, SS, 31 (1978); A. S. Brennan, ‘The Function of the Chorus in Henry V’, PQ, 58 (1979); Brian Vickers, “Suppose you see”: The Chorus in Henry V and The Mirror for Magistrates’ in Shakespearean Continuities, ed. John Batchelor, Tom Cain and Claire Lamont (1997); Yu Jin Ko, ‘A Little Touch of Harry in the Light: Henry Vat the New Globe’ SS Sz (1999)
See Anne Barton ibid., p. Ioz, and John D. Cox, Shakespeare and the Dramaturgy of Power (Princeton, 1989), chap. 6.
H. Granville-Barker, ‘From Henry V to Hamlet’ (Proceedings of the British Academy, 192.4–2.5); reprinted, revised version, in Aspects of Shakespeare (L. Abercrombie et al., Oxford, 1933)•
Stephen Greenblatt, Shakespearean Negotiations (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1988), p. 63. Others have also sought to reconcile the two views of Henry, and this ‘double vision’ seems to be the preferred interpretation now. See Joel B. Altman, ‘“Vile Participation”: The Amplification of Violence in the Theater of Henry V’ (SQ, 42. (1991), 1–32.).
See Harold Jenkins, The Structural Problem in Shakespeare’s Henry the Fourth (London, 1956), reprinted in his Structural Problems in Shakespeare (London, zool), 3—zz.
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© 2002 E.A.J. Honigmann
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Honigmann, E.A.J. (2002). The Charm of As You Like It . In: Shakespeare: Seven Tragedies Revisited. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230503038_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230503038_12
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