Are those actors right, do you think, who play Oliver as guessing who Ganymede is when she swoons?  Is Rosalind’s conduct unwomanly?  Is her disguise unlikely?

QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION

It is best for the man to love the most; and therefore has Silvius and Phebe’s unequal love-match a better chance for happiness than Rosalind’s and Orlando’s?

VII

THE PASTORAL ELOPMENT

The Rise of Pastoral Poetry, and Shakespeare’s Use of it in ’As You Like It.’

Compare Spenser’s ‘Shepherd’s Calendar,’ Fletcher’s ’Faithful Shepherdess,’ etc.  Point out any differences you find between Shakespeare’s and Spenser’s pastoral poetry.  Modern literary use of the pastoral element, Wordsworth’s ‘Michael.’  Is the pastoral life of literature always artificial?  Can a progress toward realism be shown?  The humor of the play.  Discuss in particular the humorous comments on contrasts between court and country life.  Compare modern instances of the refinements and artifices of city life and the crudeness of work and pleasure in the country.

Special Points.—­1.  The Forest of Arden:  Is it in England, France, or Shakespeare’s imagination? 2.  “Old Robin Hood of England.”  What are the legends concerning him? 3.  The archaic words in the play. (See Prof.  Sinclair Korner’s ’Shakespeare’s Inheritance from the Fourteenth Century,’ in Poet-lore, Vol.  II., p. 410, Aug., 1890.)

QUERY FOR DISCUSSION

Is the opposition shown in the play between life at court and in the country truly shown to be to the advantage of the country.

VIII

THE MORAL ELEMENT

The moral side of the Play consists, according to the Introduction in the First Folio Edition, in its persuasion toward an Arden of the disposition, or a spirit of happy good will toward all men.  How far does this cover the lesson of the Play?

What is to be thought of the idea in the ‘Ethics of “As You Like It"’ (Poet-lore, Vol.  III., p. 498, Oct., 1891), that Touchstone’s opinion of a shepherd’s life (III. ii.) is the key-note of the play?  Are the references to fortune in the play significant?  Dr. F.J.  Furnivall says:  “What we most prize is misfortune borne with cheery mind, the sun of man’s spirit shining through and dispersing the clouds which try to shade it.  This is the spirit of the play.”  Of this Dr. Ingleby says:  “The moral of the play is much more concrete than this.  It is not how to bear misfortune with a cheery mind, but how to read the lessons in the vicissitudes of physical nature.”  C.A.  Wurtzburg says:  “The deep truths that may be gathered from the play are the innate dignity of the human spirit, before which every conventionality of birth, rank, education, even of natural ties, must give way.”  Give arguments drawn from the play in favor of or against all of these suggestions.  Is it an evidence of Shakespeare’s intention to be a moral teacher that he altered the fate of Duke Frederick?