QUERY FOR DISCUSSION

Has the play any moral that is not gently satirized in it?

IX

THE SOURCE OF THE PLOT

Shakespeare’s Variations from Lodge.

Compare Lodge’s ‘Rosalind’ with ‘As You Like It.’

(For this story, see “Shakespeare’s Library” or Extracts in Notes and
Comment in Sources in “First Folio Edition").

Is the story better without the parts Shakespeare leaves out (e. g., Adam’s proposal to Rosader to cut his veins and suck the blood; his nose-bleed; the incident of the robbers accounting for Aliena’s sudden love, etc.)?  Why is the “Green and gilded snake” added?  Isn’t the “lioness” enough?  Is Rosader or Orlando the finer character, and why?  The new characters introduced—­Audrey and William—­considered as embodying real instead of ideal pastoral life.  Do Shakespeare’s changes affect the plot, the characters, or the moral of the story?  (For an examination of the plot of the play, see ’An Inductive Study of “As You Like It,"’ in Poet-lore, Vol.  III., p. 341.)

A Sketch of Lodge’s Life and Work. (See ’An Elizabethan Lyrist:  Thomas
Lodge,’ in Poet-lore, Vol.  III., p. 593, Dec, 1891.)

QUERY FOR DISCUSSION

Is Shakespeare’s framing of the plot of ‘As You Like It’ not to be admired, because it is borrowed?

X

THE MUSIC OF THE PLAY

This may consist of a brief paper on the subject illustrated by a program of the songs with the old and more modern settings. (See New Shakespeare Society’s Papers, on this subject; ’Shakespeare and Music,’ by E.W.  Naylor.)

TWELFE NIGHT

The winsomeness of this poetic comedy rightly makes the reader or the hearer hesitate to count its petals or scrutinize the stages of its growth, which are marked by its acts as symmetrically as leaf buds are ranged about a stalk.  And yet, one may find that to take note of such beautiful orderliness in the delicate structure and sprightly blossoming of the poet’s design enhances the appreciation of its artistic quality.  Regarding it first as a whole, sum up the stages of the action, first; then the caprices its allusions denote; then the characters; and finally the poetic fancy and wit exhaled by the whole play like a fragrance.

I

THE STORY OF THE PLAY