Instruction Versus Deception:
from Rosalynde to As You Like It
Thomas Lodge's Rosalynde is an unwieldy pastoral, overladen
with classical allusions and Latin aphorisms for courtier and shepherd
alike. The romance is thick, heavy, and conventional. Yet when Shakespeare
took it in hand, to rework the tangled web of disguise and romance into
As You Like It, he changed much of the emphasis, by both
altering and adding characters. Rosalynde is a celebration
of love; As You Like It, a philosophical discourse on love,
for Rosalind does not so much woo Orlando as educate him in the proper way
to love.
Shakespeare cuts to the chase, eliminating much of the prologue to
Rosalynde. We hear of old Sir Roland de Boys (Lodge's John
of Bordeaux) only through Orlando's opening speech, not the extended
deathbed collection of aphorisms Lodge provides (though this shade of
Polonius perhaps influences old Adam's long-winded style). Likewise, the
extended ruminations are cut entirely or, for the forest scenes, condensed
into tighter dialogue. Lodge's grand tournament, with the jousting
prowess of the anonymous Norman (proto-Charles) happens offstage, and we
see only a wrestling match. Lodge's usurper favors Rosader after the
tournament, but Shakespeare's Frederick spurns Orlando for his parentage
and Oliver plots more quickly against his brother, further excising the
plot-perambulations of the source and removing the months of tension and
reconciliation that plague Saladin and Rosader.
But Shakespeare also takes care to lighten his villains, more in the
spirit of a playful comedy than Lodge's sometimes grim pastoral. His
Charles is relatively innocent, deceived by Oliver rather than entering
willingly into his pay (as the Norman does with Saladin). Oliver, in
turn, is not such a relentless foe as Saladin: he has no cronies to assist
in binding up Orlando, he does not so mistreat his brother before us as
happens in Lodge's pastoral. Even the usurper Duke, Torismond/Frederick,
does not exile his own daughter in Shakespeare's play (only remonstrating
her with "You are a fool"). And he is not killed in battle at
the end of the play, but rather converted to a holy life, in much the same
fate that Lodge's Saladin plans for himself in remorse ("[I shall]
wend my way to the Holy Land, to end my years in as many virtues, as I
have spent my youth in wicked vanities." (p.273)).
In contrast, Shakespeare darkens his heroes: they are not all the blithe,
pastoral folk Lodge paints. Celia's single "Is it not a foul bird that
defiles its own nest?" (p. 245) early in Rosalynde becomes
Celia's more extended harangue at the end of IV.i. -- unlike in Lodge,
Celia does not volunteer to marry Orlando and Rosalind, but is rather
shanghaied into the task, to her chagrin. Orlando is not nearly as polite
in his first appearance to the exiled Duke: "Forbear, and eat no more!"
(II.vii.88) is rather more abrupt and impolitic than Rosader's polished
and chivalric challenge. Shakespeare's people are more human, with
virtues and flaws for all.
Amidst this simplification of Lodge's mass of material, Shakespeare
also changes many emphases. Lodge's lovers do little but harangue each
other about the legendary inconstancy of the other sex: Rosalind performs
her share of carping, but also attacks the overwhelming over-romanticism
of Orlando's love. Lodge's plentiful sonnets become objects of ridicule
in As You Like It, material for the doggerel imitations of
Touchstone's "Sweetest nut hath sourest rind, / Such a nut is
Rosalind" (III.ii.109-110). And Rosalind's lessons to Orlando are
meant to make him respect that "sour rind," not to put his love
on a pedestal for worship. Touchstone and Audrey present raw sexual love,
lust instead of romance; Silvius' longings for Phebe show the foolish
extreme of Petrarchan love, a losing of the self rather than a finding of
the lover, and more worthy of mockery than respect. Rosalind's disguised
love-play is not merely a game with hapless Orlando, but an education: he
must care enough to keep his promises and appointments, and respect her
enough to speak as well as kiss (IV.i.). Orlando's wound is not merely
the delay in the plot that Lodge makes it, but the occasion for his proof
that the lesson is learned: Oliver's arrival with the bloody napkin shows
Orlando's new-found sensibility.
Lodge's Rosalynde's characters concern themselves greatly
with whether to love: Shakespeare's are more worried with
the question of how to love. Rosalind strives for the
triumph of rational relationships over heady emotionalism, a romance that
will allow the woman to keep her intelligence and dignity intact, but
still achieve romantic bliss. No wonder she seems so modern, and pleases
so many modern audiences.