Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Dale G. Priest

Critical Essay by Dale G. Priest

SOURCE: Priest, Dale G. “Oratio and Negotium: Manipulative Modes in As You Like It.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 28, no. 2 (spring 1988): 273-86.

In the following essay, Priest concentrates on the three “manipulators” of As You Like It—Jaques, Touchstone, and Rosalind—the last of whom emerges as the most skilled and benevolent negotiator of the play.

Most of the personae in As You Like It address themselves in characteristic ways to the pastoral world Shakespeare has created in Arden. Each has his own distinct mode of response to that world. Still, a general bipartite pattern can be found in the various voices and strategies, a pattern that helps define two important polarities in the play. First we note the voices of accommodation—such characters as Corin, Orlando, and Duke Senior, who represent a spirit of inclusiveness in the play, and who function generally to promote integration and community. Other voices...
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