Ecocriticism explores the way in which artists interact with, interpret and represent the natural world. The concept of “nature,” according to ecocriticism, goes beyond simply flora and fauna, extending to human nature as well. In Shakespeare's England, a person's nature was determined by his bodily humors, so the melancholy humor particularly lends itself to an ecocritical approach because it is inextricably linked to the natural world. Transcending genre, melancholy is not limited to the green world of comedy but rather appears in tragedy as well. In As You Like It, the melancholy Jaques offers a foil for the forest teeming with sanguine lovers. In Hamlet, however, melancholy becomes a much more bleak and ambiguous quality, raising questions concerning the nature of acting and suicide. In the study of melancholy within As You Like It and Hamlet, an ecocritical perspective offers a unique insight into the way Shakespeare experiences and interacts with the natural world.

Thesis advisor: Andrew Sofer / In this thesis, it is my task to explore Shakespeare’s social analysis concerning the patriarchal structure of the family and the economic implications of this system. Four plays in particular, King Lear, Henry IV, As You Like It, and The Tempest resonate with these thematic elements. At the heart of these plays is the issue I call the paternal dilemma; the father or patriarch is a mere human, cannot live forever, and therefore needs to rely on an inheritance scheme to ensure the continuation of his line. This problem sees the institution of inheritance (namely, primogeniture) as a solution or antidote to mortality. In an investigation of these issues, I place myself in an already rich field of secondary criticism, examining how genre and family structure combine in what is ultimately a conservative understanding of the Elizabethan family. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: English Honors Program. / Discipline: English.

Gender performativity, detailed by Judith Butler and accepted by most contemporary queer theorists, rests on an agentive model of gender wherein “genders are appropriated, theatricalized, worn, and done” (“Imitation and Gender Insubordination” 716). This academic orthodoxy is challenged, however, by the increasing presence of transgender persons joining the theoretical discourse, many of whom experience an essential gender as a central facet of their identity. I respond to Katie R. Horowitz’s recent modification of Butler’s theories—a theory of omniperformance to dissolve the distinction between performance and performativity, and thereby between artifice and “real life.” I argue that gender-as-art, a schema that acknowledges both the intention and the intuition of gender, is a more fruitful foundation than omniperformance. I use, as my model, Elisabeth Bergner’s performance as Rosalind in Paul Czinner’s 1936 As You Like It and Bryce Dallas Howard’s 2007 Rosalind in Kenneth Branagh’s film adaptation of the same play. In Bergner and Howard’s androgynous gender performances, I argue, a body—a transgender body, an androgynous body, a genderqueer body, a cisgender body—represents an aesthetic ideal, the product of the human drive to create, to beget, to beautify.

As an actor, it is absolutely imperative to resist the urge to pass judgment on the characters we portray. True, that as people, we sometimes judge ourselves, and deem our conduct as right or wrong, but usually after finding the justification in the action first. We understand why we do the things we do. Therefore, it is as important to find our character s point-of-view as well. When I was cast as Oliver de Boys in the Orlando Shakespeare Theater s mainstage production of William Shakespeare s As You Like It, I knew the biggest challenge before me was to avoid playing him as the villain. I had to discover the reasoning and the humanity behind his heinous actions. Most importantly, I had to try to understand why he would attempt to murder his brother Orlando. Growing up with three sisters whom I considered my best friends, I had no personal frame of reference for this extreme action. This thesis will examine the research and creation of Oliver de Boys. A thorough historical analysis will present the life of William Shakespeare, with specific focus on the relationship with his own siblings. Also included will be the production history of the As You Like It and the times in which it was written. Particular emphasis will be placed on the Elizabethan s preoccupation with primogeniture, the system of inheritance or succession by the firstborn, traditionally the eldest son ( Primogeniture 1). Finally, this section will contain a look at two literary figures that greatly influenced the evolution of Oliver: Saladyne, the eldest brother in Sir Thomas Lodge s Rosalynde, of which As You Like It is largely based on and Cain, the archetype of fratricide. The next chapter will explore Oliver s journey in As You Like It, from villain to lover to brother; ultimately, his conversion from evil to good. It will also document the director s concept for the production and his vision for the portrayal of Oliver. A comprehensive character analysis or character autobiography will examine the psychological motivations behind Oliver s actions, such as sibling rivalry, jealousy, resentment and greed. This thesis will culminate in a comprehensive rehearsal journal, which will document and address challenges, discoveries, failures and victories during the production process.

In As You Like It 5.4.107-08 we receive Rosalind returning as herself—a woman—no longer in the guise of Ganymede, the "boy" page. Her first lines upon returning are repetitive: "To you I give myself, for I am yours [To Duke Senior] / To you I give myself, for I am yours [To Orlando]." However, comparing Folio versions of these lines produces a provocative variant. In the third and fourth folios, these lines are no longer a repetitious patriarchal pledging, but a tender dialogic exchange—much like vows—between Rosalind and Orlando. While none of our modern Shakespeare editions make a note of this variant emendation, this article traces the editorial history and mystery surrounding As You Like It 5.4.107-08 from seventeenth-century editors to our modern ones—with an emphasis on the shift in Shakespeare editing during the eighteenth century—to suggest the variant emendation warrants consideration for text and performance. Furthermore, the article examines the plausibility of the third and fourth folio's emendation in congruence with Early Modern conceptions of companionate marriage, parental consent, and marriage rites.

In As You Like It 5.4.107-08 we receive Rosalind returning as herself”a woman”no longer in the guise of Ganymede, the boy page. Her first lines upon returning are repetitive: To you I give myself, for I am yours [To Duke Senior] / To you I give myself, for I am yours [To Orlando]. However, comparing Folio versions of these lines produces a provocative variant. In the third and fourth folios, these lines are no longer a repetitious patriarchal pledging, but a tender dialogic exchange "much like vows" between Rosalind and Orlando. While none of our modern Shakespeare editions make a note of this variant emendation, this article traces the editorial history and mystery surrounding As You Like It 5.4.107-08 from seventeenth-century editors to our modern ones with an emphasis on the shift in Shakespeare editing during the eighteenth century to suggest the variant emendation warrants consideration for text and performance. Furthermore, the article examines the plausibility of the third and fourth folios emendation in congruence with Early Modern conceptions of companionate marriage, parental consent, and marriage rites.

No description available.

In its introduction and four chapters, this project demonstrates that Shakespeare responded to—and powerfully shaped—the early modern English literary marketplace. Against the longstanding critical limitation of the category “Literature” that restricts it to the printed book, this dissertation argues that the literary is not so much a quality of texts as a mode of exchange encompassing not merely printed books but many other forms of representation. Whether writing for the stage, the page, or both, Shakespeare borrowed from and influenced other writers, and it is these specifically formal transactions that make his works literary. Thus, we can understand Shakespeare’s literariness only by scrutinizing the formal features of his works and showing how they circulated in an economy of imaginative writing. Shakespeare self-consciously refashioned words, styles, metrical forms, and figures of speech even as he traded in them, quickly cornering the literary market between 1595 and 1600. Shakespeare’s practice as a writer thus preceded and made possible his reputation both in the theater and in print. / text

Since the advent of the environmental crisis, some writers have raised concerns with the moral influence of Christian scripture and interpretive traditions, such as the medieval book of nature, a hermeneutic in which nature and scripture are "read" in reference to one another. Scripture, they argue, has tended to stifle sacred relationships with nature as a non-human other. This thesis argues that such perspectives are reductive of the sacred quality of scripture. Environmental perspectives should be concerned with the desacralization of religious texts in addition to nature. Chapter one suggests that two questions surrounding the medieval book of nature's history can help us address ways that such perspectives reduce religious interpretation of sacred texts. The first question is the tension between manifestation and proclamation, or the question of how scripture and nature reveal sacred meanings. The second is the problem of evil, or the question of where evil and suffering come from. It also proposes that Shakespeare's As You Like It and religious philosophy, particularly Paul Ricoeur's writings, can help us address these problems and provide a contemporary religious perspective of the "book of nature." Drawing on scenes in the play in which nature is "read" as a book and Ricoeur's essay on "Manifestation and Proclamation," chapter two argues how manifestation often works interdependently with proclamation. Chapter three discusses how anthropocentric worldviews in which natural entities are exploited also distort interpretive relationships with scripture. Overcoming desacralization requires giving up desires to suppress contingencies, particularly suffering, in nature and in interpreting religious texts. Only as the characters in As You Like It accept contingencies are they able to engage hidden sources of hope, which is comparable to the need to let go of mastery in interpretation Ricoeur describes. Chapter four discusses problems with attempts to uncover the origins of the environmental crisis by discussing what Ricoeur writes about the problems with theodicy and Jean-Luc Marion's phenomenology of evil. Assumptions that specific human origins for evil can be blamed confirm deceptively human-centered worldviews and can mask valuable messages about how to morally respond to suffering that are taught in Judeo-Christian narratives.