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Defining love in Shakespeare’s As You Like It

I believe that although the centre of the play As You Like It is love, it is significantly
difficult to define it in one obvious and purely objective way as love itself is represented in various
forms. In my opinion the most typical one is the love between the two protagonists, Rosalind and
Orlando, which evolved from one short conversation at the beginning to a marriage at the end. On
the other hand, however, we meet different aspects of love as well, such as the relationship between
Audrey and Touchstone, who have known each other for an incredible amount of time before their
marriage, or the love Silvius feels towards Phebe and her emotions throughout the play. In this
paper I would like to give an attempt to define these aspects of love, give an answer to the question
why Shakespeare formed the feelings of the characters the way he did, and observe the meaning
and importance of marriage in the play.

As far as I am concerned, love itself is mainly shown as a feeling, a desire that can appear
by only a glance towards a person, without any deeper thoughts or knowledge of the other one.
For instance, the love between the heroine Rosalind and the hero Orlando is based on one
encounter at the very beginning of the play, when Orlando is in the middle of a wrestling duel and
the two get into a brief conversation with each other. After that Rosalind claims that she fell in
love with him and later we get to know that Orlando also has tender feelings towards the girl. For
me this means that they do have something between them, however I would not call it a strong,
undoubtedly long-lasting romantic relationship, rather a powerful desire, a typical case of “love at
first sight”. To speak with Margaret Boerner Beckman, “The most additional way to interpret their
relationship is ‘an incorporation into a less extravagant final version of the play's depiction of
romantic, honorable, love- at-first-sight idealism.”1

In addition, I believe that the relationship between Rosalind and Orlando is not pure love
towards each other, but more like an attraction towards an illusion, an idealistic image created
based on their first encounter. As Beckman puts it: “Jenkins regards many of the oppositions in

1
Margaret Boerner Beckman: The figure of Rosalind in As You Like It. (Oxford University Press:
Shakespearean Quarterly, vol.29, no. 1, 1978) pp. 44.
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the play as never having been real. (…) Similarly, Rosalind's mockery of Orlando is not truthful,
but "only play at taunting her adorer while allowing her real woman's heart to be in love with him
in earnest"2 (p. 45). They did not have enough time to get to know each other well, yet when
Orlando was asked to swear to love Rosalind eternally, he gladly did so. I think that is because by
the time we got to this point, he already imagined his own Rosalind for whom he fell for. I am
concerned that the key point here is the connection between loving and knowing each other. Loving
someone without knowing their faults is easy, but when it comes to revealing our true side, it is
much more difficult to maintain our first impression of the other one. Rosalind might have been
intimidated of showing her true self; as Beckman observes: “she stands for the "realism" that is
opposed to Orlando's idealism”3. Perhaps that is why she dressed up as a shepherd and had
Orlando swear not to leave her under any circumstances.

Love is not always pure and honest as it seems in the play. In my opinion, this is true for
Phebe, whose emotions changed drastically as time went by. In Act I, Scene VI she rejects the
confession of Silvius:

“But till that time

Come not thou near me: and when that time comes,
Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not
As till that time I shall not pity thee.” (I.vi. 34-37)

After the reveal of Rosalind, she agrees to marry Silvius saying the following to him:

I will not eat my word. Now thou art mine,

Thy faith my fancy to thee doth combine. (V. iv. 154-155)

However, Phebe never said she was in love with Silvius, her admirer, but rather felt attracted to
Ganymede, the disguise of Rosalind. She was tricked into marriage with Silvius after the reveal of
Rosalind; I am beyond doubt that although Rosalind possibly wanted to help Silvius and Phebe,

2
Margaret Boerner Beckman: The figure of Rosalind in As You Like It. (Oxford University Press:
Shakespearean Quarterly, vol.29, no. 1, 1978) pp. 45.
3
Margaret Boerner Beckman: The figure of Rosalind in As You Like It. (Oxford University Press:
Shakespearean Quarterly, vol.29, no. 1, 1978) pp. 46.
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the shepherdess would never be as happy as she could have been without Silvius. That can be
defined as an unrequired love of which the endurer is no one else but Phebe.

According to what I have mentioned above, I am concerned that Phebe is not aware of who
she falls in love with. Similarly to the relationship between Orlando and Rosalind, Phebe is also
swept off her feet by somebody with whom she did not have a proper conversation throughout the
play. In my opinion, Phebe, like Rosalind and Orlando, has developed a crush on rather an
imaginary person than the one she met in reality. In that case, the ending would make more sense
when it comes to understanding why was Phebe able to give up her love towards Ganymede so
easily after the reveal of Rosalind and agreed to marry Silvius instead.

Silvius, on the other hand, is shown as the representative of Petrarch’s platonic love.4
Petrarch’s most common theme regarding love is the one felt for somebody that is unreachable, a
longing for someone. Silvius admits his love multiple times towards Phebe, he keeps on talking
and thinking of her but, in my opinion, he does not take any serious effort in order to conquer the
shepherdess’ heart. As for me, Shakespeare used this type of love in his play in order to show a
mocking glass to the patriarchic society of his era. During that time social conventions dictated
that a marriage between two people from the same social class is necessary, if not obligatory and
if it was initiated by a man it had to be accepted. Here a marriage between Silvius and Phebe is not
taken for granted as Silvius had to wait for Phebe to cave in. In my opinion, Shakespeare’s aim
was to treat social conventions in an ironic way. As Nathaniel Strout claims: “To Shakespeare (…)
love between men and women is grounded in mutual, not just masculine, behavior, and what has
happened between people helps make possible what will happen.” 5 Perhaps, that is why Phebe’s
character was not written to be fundamentally in love with Silvius- to strengthen the idea of an
unrequired love and a marriage unwanted by one of the parties.

In my opinion the most realistic representation of love is the one between Touchstone and
Audrey. At the time of the play, they have already known each other for a while, they had been in
a serious relationship with each other and they were contemplating on getting married. On the
contrary of Orlando, Rosalind, Silvius and Phebe, they did not have a false image of the other as

4
We have talked about this topic during the seminar.
5
Nathaniel Strout: “As You Like It, Rosalynde”, and Mutuality. (Rice University: Studies in English Literature Vol. 41,
No. 2, Tudor and Stuart Drama, Spring, 2001). pp. 281
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they worked together, lived together and so had the time to get to know each other. I am concerned
that true love cannot develop by only a glance, it needs time to feel emotionally connected to
someone else, and this type of “learning to love each other” happened only in the case of
Touchstone and Audrey. According to that, I believe that the only ones that experience true love
in this play is Touchstone and Audrey as they love not only an image, but the soul of each other.
As Hymen says in Act V at the wedding scene:

You and you are sure together

As the winter to foul weather. (V. iv. 140-141)

The difference between loving and knowing each other is, as I have discussed it in the case
of Orlando and Rosalind, an important issue when it comes to the relationship of Touchstone and
Audrey. According to what I have written earlier in this paper, knowing somebody has its own
risks as it has the possibility to destroy an initial love. In my opinion, as Rosalind was afraid of
this consequence, Audrey did not fear of losing her significant other because they may have been
aware of what they were getting into after the time they have sent together. As Strout claims in his
work: “A pair of stairs to marriage is not as important as their climbing those stairs together”. 6

The marriage between the two should represent real and true love, but instead it gives rather
a false picture of a spousal. They are the only couple in the play who had planned to merge their
lives together yet there was no priest, no legal ceremony at their marriage. In my opinion the reason
why their spousal turned out the way it did was because Shakespeare wanted to parody the tradition
and value of marriage of his era and to take over the social conventions regarding it. According to
Strout, marriage itself is a “public expression of mutual feelings and love7”.

On the contrary, he continues claiming that other than that, sexual desire can also be a
significant reason for marrying. The one who pointed that out was Touchstone in the third Act:

As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb, and the falcon her bells, so man hath his
desires; and as pigeons bill, so wedlock would be nib- bling" (III.iii.79-82).

6
Nathaniel Strout: “As You Like It, Rosalynde”, and Mutuality. (Rice University: Studies in English Literature Vol. 41,
No. 2, Tudor and Stuart Drama, Spring, 2001). pp. 287
7
Nathaniel Strout: “As You Like It, Rosalynde”, and Mutuality. (Rice University: Studies in English Literature Vol. 41,
No. 2, Tudor and Stuart Drama, Spring, 2001). pp. 283
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In my opinion, that can be interpreted in more like an ironic way as even though I claimed earlier
that the key point in the relationship between Audrey and Touchstone is their knowledge of each
other, sexual desire is highlighted by Touchstone as a motive to marry Audrey. I am concerned
that sexual desire is not usually seen as a symbol of the above- discussed “true love”, but rather an
impulsive longing for one’s physical appearance. Again, I believe that Shakespeare was trying to
show a false glass to the society of his era, to demonstrate that marriage is not always a
consequence of social conventions, but can happen out of passion as well.

Considering the aspects discussed above, I believe that the connection between marriage
and love in the play is not to highlight traditional values, but rather to present them more like in
an ironic way. Marriage itself would be an incredibly strict social customs in the age of Henry
VIII. In my opinion Shakespeare was in some way against these conventions; I believe that is why
Shakespeare showed four different ways of love ending in a marriage, none of which can be
considered as “traditional”. Orlando and Rosalind fell in love with an idealistic illusion of each
other, therefore they do not get to know each other before the marriage. Silvius had to wait for
Phebe to agree to marry him, meanwhile she was in love with Ganymede and ended up in a
marriage with Silvius because of the pact with Rosalind. These events show a mocking glass to
the patriarchic society of his age as in these cases men were under control of women’s feelings.
Audrey and Touchstone did have a relationship before their marriage but on the wedding there was
no priest, no official ceremony which means that even their marriage can not be counted any more
“valid” than the others’. I would like to end my paper with the words of Beckman: “Shakespeare
represents or evokes ideal life, and then makes fun of it because it does not square with life as it
ordinarily is.”. 8

REFERENCE LIST

8
Margaret Boerner Beckman: The figure of Rosalind in As You Like It. (Oxford University Press:
Shakespearean Quarterly, vol.29, no. 1, 1978) pp. 45.
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• Margaret Boerner Beckman: The figure of Rosalind in As You Like It. (Oxford
University Press: Shakespearean Quarterly, vol.29, no. 1, Winter, 1978) pp.
44-51
• Nathaniel Strout: “As You Like It, Rosalynde”, and Mutuality. (Rice
University: Studies in English Literature Vol. 41, No. 2, Tudor and Stuart
Drama, Spring, 2001). pp. 277-265
• Notes from our Medieval and Early Modern English Literature Seminar