The Forest of Arden

Product Information

While for other dramatists, wild men were “a vogue that peaked and faded”, writes Barton, “Shakespeare’s interest in wild men seems to have extended throughout his writing career, taking in Oliver [ As You Like It], Timon [ Timon of Athens], the dancers in Bohemia [ The Winter’s Tale], Caliban [ The Tempest], Cardenio [ The History of Cardenio] and (in a sense) Herne the Hunter in The Merry Wives of Windsor.” Elsewhere in the book she explores the various traditions of Robin Hood and Merlin the enchanter, both of whom make appearances in plays by Shakespeare’s contemporaries, including Ben Jonson. The subsoil here is a generally a heavy deep clay. Digging a small hole, after about 9 inches down will hit clay, which is what oaks like, and many other trees don't. This heavy clay soil is less favourable to agriculture and so was less susceptible to being cleared for farmland. Arden Shakespeare has also published a Complete Works of Shakespeare, which reprints editions from the second and third series but without the explanatory notes.

What sparked off the war was Marston’s version of the anonymous satire Histriomastix [1599], in which Jonson recognised himself in the character Crysoganus, a role not to his liking” (Anna Anzi, Storia del teatro inglese dalle origini al 1660, ch. III, Einaudi, Turin 1977, p. 151). Sarah Clough. " As You Like It: Pastoral Comedy, The Roots and History of Pastoral Romance". Sheffield Theatres. Archived from the original on 28 September 2007 . Retrieved 10 August 2008.

Analysis

As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 (the house having been a focus for literary activity under Mary Sidney for much of the later C16th) has been suggested as a possibility. Woodlands were still common in Shakespeare’s England, though the Forest of Arden itself was already in decline. For Shakespeare woods have a whole series of symbolic meanings. They can be places of unlawful and horrific violence: the rape of Lavinia in Titus Andronicus and the near-rape of Silvia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona take place in forests. They can also be places of refuge: in a parallel with the legends of Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest, woodland provides a secular sanctuary for those on the run from the scheming life of the court, such as Valentine in The Two Gentlemen of Verona and the banished Duke in As You Like It. In Arden, both Rosalind and Oliver have a chance to reinvent themselves. Rosalind, having fled the corrupt society of court, approaches the Forest of Arden as a place where she may be able to be free to be herself. In a move that suggests the particular oppression of women in Renaissance England, Rosalind re-imagines herself as the mythological male figure of Ganymede: a Trojan boy of great beauty and Zeus' cupbearer (II.1.123). In Rosalind's attempt to shed her identity in outside society as the daughter of Duke Senior, she chooses the identity of a strong male. Underneath her disguise, however, she clings fiercely to her femininity. Even in her man's apparel, Rosalind insists that she can "cry like a woman" (II.4.5).

Now Cambridge University Press has published The Shakespearean Forest, Anne Barton’s final book, based in part on her Clark Lectures in 2003. It has been prepared for publication by Dr Hester Lees-Jeffries, a former research assistant to Barton and now a Shakespeare scholar herself, and a University Lecturer in the Faculty of English. In an editor’s note, Lees-Jeffries describes Barton’s seminars, held in her beautiful rooms at Trinity College, as often intimidating but always with a sense of occasion. During the last ice age, 12,000 years ago, there were no trees at all across England. At the end of the ice age, trees began to move northwards from Southern Europe. 5,000 years ago, England was largely covered by wildwood. Pollen analysis shows that the commonest tree, throughout central and southern England was the lime.

Contents

It seems likely this play was written after 1598, since Francis Meres did not mention it in his Palladis Tamia. Although twelve plays are listed in Palladis Tamia, it was an incomplete inventory of Shakespeare's plays to that date (1598). The new Globe Theatre opened some time in the summer of 1599, and tradition has it that the new playhouse's motto was Totus mundus agit histrionem—"all the Globe's a stage"—an echo of Jaques' famous line "All the world's a stage" (II.7). [12] This evidence posits September 1598 to September 1599 as the time frame within which the play was likely written. English broad leaf woodlands have been managed, coppiced or pollarded for centuries and tend to be beautiful open sunlit places, very different to the dark, dense coniferous Germanic forests which really are scary places. Shaw, George Bernard (1897). "Shaw on Shakespeare". In Tomarken, Edward (ed.). As You Like It from 1600 to the Present: Critical Essays. New York: Routledge. pp.533–534. ISBN 0-8153-1174-5. Barton’s interest in the staging of Shakespeare’s plays reflects the way her own life brought together the worlds of theatre and academia, not least in her marriage to the director John Barton. In an afterword to The Shakespearean Forest, Shakespeare scholar Professor Peter Holland writes that many of Barton’s students became actors and directors and that many of her research students (including Holland himself) wrote dissertations centrally concerned with the questions of performance in early modern drama.

The general editors for this series are Suzanne Gossett of Loyola University Chicago; John Jowett of the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham; and Gordon McMullan of King's College London.a b Gay, Penny (1994). As She Likes It: Shakespeare's Unruly Women. Routledge. ISBN 9780415096959. OCLC 922595607. Norman Conquest. The Norman Kings wished to claim large areas of woodland for sport, and introduced the concept of Royal Forest. These designated areas included both wood, meadow and farmland. About 25% of England was brought under "Forest Law", with severe penalties for poaching the King's game. Act 1, scene 1 Orlando demands that his elder brother Oliver give him part of the money left by their father. Oliver decides to get rid of Orlando by encouraging him to take part in a wrestling match almost sure to be fatal. Since As You Like It is a comedy, the atmosphere, especially in the Forest of Arden, is portrayed as a light, happy atmosphere, despite the harshness of reality. Most importantly, As You Like It is a pastoral play, and like other pastoral literature, the forest is portrayed as a peaceful and even healing place. Pastoral literature likens the country to a type of utopia, while city life is portrayed as being full of corruption.