By Kelly McCurley
Notions about class distinctions during the Renaissance became more ambiguous than at any other period of time. “Many countries moved from a feudal to a capitalist economy, leading to some of the worst peasants’ revolts in the history of Europe.”(Aston) During the last quarter of the 1500’s the conditions for social status and position were going through radical changes, as “the boundaries between the upper elite and the gentry as well as those between these groups and the wealthier professional classes below them were particularly ambiguous.” (Bailey)
There came about a term called sorts, which essentially split the population into two roughly defined classes. There were the better sorts, which included the noblemen, gentlemen, and yeomen. The meaner sorts included the husbandmen, artisans, and laborers. The citizens or merchants could go into either category depending upon income, rank in society, local reputation, profession, and age. Citizens rose in the ranks due to an economic boom in “national trading, service industries, manufacturing businesses, and government posts.” (Bailey) The laboring classes saw an increased number of skilled workers and the availability of printed literature provided educational advances. The traditional gauges of status such as “birth, wealth, occupation, political allegiance, and life style, as well as regional, religious, and professional affiliation,” (Bailey) were beginning to fade.
To maintain some order, Queen Elizabeth declared a clothing proclamation in 1562. In summary, apparel was one of the primary means through which royalty and the upper class could proclaim their authority and power. One could only wear the outlined styles for the assigned class level. Upper classes had the option of wearing apparel assigned to any of the social classes below. In fact many nobles are said to have dressed in shepherd’s garb or peasant clothing for entertainment. For the nobility, the life of a peasant or shepherd was romanticized. “Pastoral poetry and paintings of peasants at work were made for rich patrons and rarely showed any hint of hardship.” (Aston) These works of art showed peasants in the field with shoes on their feet, well fed bodies, and brightly colored clothing. Ironically, peasant life was far different.
There were also men who moved downward from nobility into the newly empowered level of the merchant class due to the institution of primogeniture. Primogeniture can be described as, “the feudal rule of inheritance by which the whole of the real estate of an intestate passes to the eldest son. Introduced into England at the Norman Conquest, and still prevailing in most places in a modified form.” (OED)
By the beginning of the 17th Century sons of merchants and yeomen shared their studies, work-lives, homes and perhaps beds with the sons of nobility. A lack of inheritance led many non-first born sons of noble and gentle birth to pursue a life in new urban settings and professions in which they could obtain their own wealth and social stature.
Shakespeare has intertwined many of these notions of class structure into his play As You Like It. The play examines the social affects of primogeniture in two relationships and is centered around the conflict of courtly vs. pastoral. Shakespeare plays with traditional ideas of both places. To do this, the stage is set within a beautiful countryside forest where the courtly characters must find refuge in order to find resolution to their problems and return to court.
Ardenne represents a golden world filled with gentle shepherds, romantic natural sounds, and sweet smells. In Act I, Scene I, we learn that Duke Frederick has banished his older brother Duke Senior into the Forest of Ardenne, and while one would normally assume that this is a bad thing, we learn from Charles that he and his lords, “live like the old Robin Hood of England.” (Shakespeare) This should put the audience at ease, since anyone familiar with the story knows that Robin Hood is a hero, who robs from the rich to give to the poor, while living off the fruit of the land. In Act II, Scene I, Duke Senior compares the woods to paradise and tells his men that he is perfectly happy where he is and so grateful to have found his freedom from life at court.
One aspect of the forest is the way in which each of the characters display virtues of court or peasantry within the setting. Duke Senior, the eternal optimist, describes in Act II Scene I, his men as being able to, “Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.” (Shakespeare) But both Orlando and Oliver have very different experiences in the pastoral setting of the forest. Orlando and his servant Adam nearly starve to death. This leads Orlando to savage tactics in order to obtain food from the Duke’s forest feast in Act II, scene VII. Later in the play, when Oliver arrives in the forest, he becomes haggard and wild looking as he encounters snakes and lions. Starvation and life-threatening attacks by wild animals are not romantic or artistic, but they are realities of living in field or forest.
The lives of shepherds were fantasized as being simple, beautiful, and kind. The shepherd Corin testifies against that theory in Act II Scene IV, when he denies Rosalind and Celia any hospitality upon meeting him for the first time and describes the curmudgeonly behavior of his master to the ladies. “But I am a shepherd to another man, And do not shear the fleeces that I graze. My master is of churlish disposition, And little recks to find the way to heaven, By doing deeds of hospitality… there is nothing That you will feed on.” (Shakespeare)
Touchstone, the court jester, retains his somewhat obnoxious behaviors of a person at court, but he surprises the audience by falling in love with a less than refined goatherd named Audrey, who has a tendency to speak with malapropisms. This act of love shocks the audience, because in Act III, Scene II, Touchstone tells Corin that he has often thought about the life of a shepherd (i.e. romanticizes about the life of a shepherd) but in the next breath condemns Corin to life in hell because he has never been to court and has therefore never learned proper manners and must be evil. We also see a return to Touchstone’s brutish courtly behavior, when he threatens the excessively polite William, who also loves Audrey. The assumed behavior of a perfectly refined court figure is juxtaposed with that of the rough and tough “blue- collar” shepherd.
Oliver is the eldest son and heir of Sir Rowland DeBois’ estate and has been reluctantly taking care of his younger brothers in a tyrannical fashion. Orlando is kept away from school and money. He is also forced to work with the animals, much like a shepherd or goatherd, and he finds this type of work beneath him. After a brief physical altercation, Orlando demands a small portion of their father’s inheritance so he can go seek his fortune elsewhere. This is a prime example of what was happening to the younger sons of families. They were fed up with the mistreatment of their brothers and were striking out on their own and leaving the threshold of the family. Orlando voices his frustration in Act I, Scene I when he says, “And the spirit of my father, which I think is within me, begins to mutiny against this servitude.” (Shakespeare)
The natural order of things is disturbed when Duke Frederick overthrows his eldest brother and rightful heir. Duke Senior has been banished to the Forest of Ardenne, where he is supposed to live meagerly and even parish. Mentioned previously, this is not the case, and the true Duke is able to maintain a dignified and plentiful “court” livelihood even in the forest. Duke Frederick, by contrast, is a tyrant and terrible ruler, evidenced by his poor treatment of Orlando after his wrestling match and Rosalind around the same time.
Orlando is brave and kind. He possesses the spirit of his father and shows his courage during his wrestling match and when he rescues Oliver from the attacks of the lioness and snake. Duke Senior is able to make people follow and love him no matter where he resides. This is why Shakespeare must reward these good brothers at the end of the play with rightful power and wealth. Duke Senior has his crown restored while Frederick joins a monastery. Orlando gets to marry into a higher class than Oliver does when he takes the hand of Rosalind, Duke Senior’s daughter.
By studying the social history of the Renaissance, audiences of As You Like It can gain greater insight into Shakespeare’s character development and opinions on social issues. It is safe to assume that he found the romantic notions about the lives of shepherds to be ridiculous and the behaviors of many court individuals equally absurd. He also seems to have disagreed with primogeniture as the only condition of inheritance. A person’s internal worth and not their birth order should determine the heir of property and money. Our own ways of judging people and situations is deeply rooted in the social changes that took place in the English Renaissance.
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