Shakespeare’s comedies.

The forest is represented across Shakespeare’s body of work, not only in the comedies

but also in tragedies such as Titus Andronicus, Timon of Athens and King Lear. By examining

the two comedies As You Like It and A Midsummer Night’s Dream and referring to The Two

Gentlemen of Verona, the representation of the forest can be explored in three ways: as a

golden world, a fallen world and ultimately as a beautiful worldholding the lovers of the

comedies. In each representation, time plays a role in the magical and chaotic forests which

capture our imaginations. Distinctive word choices in the script create half-rhymes and puns

and give an insight into the different atmospheres of the two comedies when performed on

stage. The importance of the forest for Shakespeare pulsates through his poetic lines and

beats in the laterwords of other poets, especially of the Romantic poets.

The forest as a setting aligns As You Like It and A Midsummer Night’s Dreamwith the

pastoral tradition. Both As You Like It and A Midsummer Night’s Dream follow the pastoral

three-part structure of exile, retreat and return.1In As You Like It, the characters of Orlando,

Oliver, Rosalind, Celia, the Duke Senior and those who accompany him are exiled from the

court, retreat into the Forest of Arden and return transformed, with Orlando and Rosalind,

and Oliver and Celia returning happily married. True to the pastoral tradition, transformations

of character also occur in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Harold Brooks describes the forest

as “a place of transformations.”2Hermia’s self-exile and retreat into fairyland ultimately leads

to her joyous wedding with Lysander back in Athens, as well as the marriage of Helena and

Demetrius. As Lord Byron wrote, “All tragedies are finished by a death. All comedies are

ended by a marriage.”

1
‘William Shakespeare Essay - Pastoral in Shakespeare’s Works - eNotes.com’,
eNotes<http://www.enotes.com/topics/william-shakespeare/critical-essays/pastoral-shakespeares-works>
[accessed 13 October 2016].
2
Harold F. Brooks, ‘Introduction’, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 3rd Revised Edition (London: Arden
Shakespeare, 1979), xcv.
 However, due to the dualistic representation of the forest as both golden and fallen,

neither play neatly fits the description of pastoral romantic comedies.In many ways, the

Forest of Arden is portrayed as a golden, pastoral world. The Duke is introduced as “old

Robin Hood of England” with “many younggentlemen flock[ing] to him every day, [to] fleet

the timecarelessly, as they did in the golden world”(I, i, 102-103). The Duke himself asks

“Are not these woods / More free from peril than the envious court? / Here feel we not the

penalty of Adam, / The season’ difference?” (II, i, 3-6). Amiens later sings “Here shall he

see/ No enemy/ But winter and rough weather” (II, v, 7-9). The forest seems to be a world

without enemies, an escape from the ‘envious court.’

The idea of “fleet[ing] the time carelessly” echoes the words of Orlando who contends,

“There is no clock in the forest” (III, ii, 276-277).A complex time scheme surrounds the play,

yielding a sense of timelessness, as discussed by Agnes Latham; Orlando reiterates that the

forest is free of the mechanical law and order of the ‘envious court,’ a “golden world.”3

Shakespeare’s choice of the Forest of Arden not only sets the play in an area of England

with which he was familiar, but plays on the half-rhyme of Arden and Eden.4When spoken,

Arden easily could be mistaken for Eden at first. The half-rhyme enriches the representation

of the forest: is it a pre-lapsarianparadise or does it continue to hold the sins and laws of the

‘envious court’ brought with the Fall of Man? This ambiguity is central to the play.

René E. Fortin discusses the parallels between Eden and Arden including the “green

and gilded snake” which preys on Oliver and the character of Adam who “reminds us by his

name and by his decrepitude that this is indeed a fallen world, a world in which we are likely

to find men crippled by age, threatened by hunger, cold, or hostile beasts, and betrayed by

3
Agnes Latham, ‘Introduction’, in As You Like It (London: Methuen, 1975), xxix.
4
Stratford-upon-Avon, where Shakespeare was born and lived for much of his life, is under 30 miles from the
Forest of Arden.
their own brothers.”5Fortin cites the scene in which Jacques laments the death of “a poor

sequest’red stag” (II, i, 34); the myth of the golden world is “damaged, if not punctured

completely, by Jacques’s analogy.”6 The deer is slaughtered by men who are “mere usurpers,

tyrants,” who frighten and kill the innocent animals “in their assigned and native dwelling

place” (II, i, 64-66). Not only do the men become enemies to the animals of the forest, the

snake and the lion become the enemies of Oliver and Orlando, who is forced to save him.

Evil and danger in the forest is recognised by Rosalind and Celia who must disguise

themselves as men to protect themselves: “beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold” (I, iii,

107). Robin Craig examines the forest as a tool to explore gender limitations. One can argue

that gender is set free in the forest: Rosalind is able to spend time with her beloved Orlando

and express herself in ways she could not at the court. However, she is only free to do so

dressed as a man, not as a woman.7 In many ways, gender remains as restricted in the forest

as it in the court.

The apparent freedom of time in the forest also has negative implications. Touchstone

laments “Ay,now am I in Arden, the more fool I. When I was at home I was in a better place”

(II, iv, 12-13). Jacques repeats the word ‘fool’ in his soliloquy to describe men who “fleet the

timecarelessly:”

And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,

And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
And thereby hangs a tale.' When I did hear

5
René E. Fortin, ‘“Tongues in Trees”: Symbolic Patterns in As You Like It’, Texas Studies in Literature and
Language, 14.4 (1973), p571.
6
Fortin, p572.
7
Robin Craig, ‘The Forest of Arden’, Shakespeare Globe
Blog<http://blog.shakespearesglobe.com/post/121028351150/the-forest-of-arden> [accessed 13 October 2016].