THE ARTISTIC INTEGRITY OF SHAKESPEARE'S "AS YOU LIKE IT"

LINDA KAY STANTON, Purdue University

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the ways in which Shakespeare uses the verbal arts of song, poetry, and playacting in As You Like It both to form the design of the play and to comment on those arts themselves. The play's songs and poems are closely explicated, and their complex interrelations traced. The "art" of playacting is analyzed in terms of its genesis, its development, and its final manifestations. The characters' developing attitudes toward these arts are also discussed. In addition, conclusions are drawn regarding Shakespeare's own attitudes toward them. The isolation and discussion of these attitudes show that in As You Like It, Shakespeare was defining "artistic integrity"; that is, the kind of integrity that both a work of art and its creator should have. In this play, Shakespeare is shown to have chosen the pastoral form to express his artistic ideals because of its traditional inclusion of the nature versus art theme. The play reveals the reasons why people both onstage and off are strongly drawn to pastoralism. It also indicates the absurdities, as well as the positive and negative implications, of such a choice. In the discussion of the songs, the dissertation shows how the concentrations that the songs have to certain of the play's speeches, as well as among themselves, are used to emphasize the themes of the play. Songs are seen to be a diversion possible only in the forest, for little harmony is present at court. Similarly, the characters' self-expression in poetry is shown to be a result of the freedom that the forest offers to the former "court-world" characters. However, their uses of poetry sometimes contain the potential for abuse of nature when they try to make nature "speak" their poetic ideals. Playacting is shown to be the most complicated of the three "arts." It in some measure incorporates the other two and provides a live, constantly developing context for a presentation of their artistic expression. Playacting is seen to develop through several stages, and to operate on several levels. The epilogue is shown to be a summary of the complexities of artistic integrity.

Degree

Ph.D.

Subject Area

British and Irish literature

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