The Winter's Tale and As You Like It: Textual Analysis

Life in the Pastoral

In Shakespeare’s plays he often incorporates the trope of the pastoral life. In particular both The Winter’s Tale and As You Like It use this trope in different situations, but in both instances the pastoral is a significant part of the play. The difference could be attributed to the natures of the plays themselves, or it could be attributed to the time when the plays were written. Both plays incorporate the pastoral as a way to show escape and simple life, but they also both create an underlying effect of discontent or tomfoolery.

In The Winter’s Tale Shakespeare uses the pastoral life in a way similar to the play Oedipus. The entire play actually takes plot points from Oedipus though not the basis of the play, nor the main lesson. Instead this play is a romance and ends much more happily than Oedipus. There are obvious differences between this play and Oedipus, however, the similarities are just as striking. The similarities involve the offspring of a royal family being left in the wilderness only to be found by a shepherd. This shepherd then raises the child as his own, this is where the similarity dissipates. While in both plays the offspring do figure out who they are the outcomes are incredibly different. Knowing that Shakespeare drew inspiration from the ancient Greek and Roman plays, these similarities, while indeed striking also make sense. This could be a reason that Shakespeare chose to use the pastoral life as a plot point and as the life for the daughter, Perdita. The overall plot of the play has some similarities to very basic ideas in Oedipus, however, Shakespeare’s play is a different genre, a romance to the ancient Greek tragedy. This is most likely the reason for the significant difference, even with the variety of similarities including the addition of another story regarding a statue made so beautiful the gods brought it to life. Even the pastoral life has a slightly different effect in each play. However, the fact that the genre is different is possibly part of the reason that the use of the pastoral has such different effects and points in the plays. These effects change the perceptions of the pastoral life on the readers or viewers of the play and thus the comparison between The Winter’s Tale and As You Like It is an important one. This comparison shows how multiple things can adjust the perception of a plot device, from the genre to the time period to the prejudice of the writer and the reader.

 The choice of a pastoral life creates an opportunity for Shakespeare to explore how classes might react in different situations. The setting of the pastoral forces the characters into situations that deal directly with simple lives. In Shakespeare this can lead to an interesting dichotomy, especially with his like of using upper class characters. Shakespeare shows the pastoral life not as idyllic, but nor does he mock it. However, Shakespeare does bring up the question of beauty and grace when in reference to class status. Polixenes, when trying to stop his son from marrying Perdita even says, “This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever/…/Too noble for this place,” which suggests that low-born women are seen as not as attractive and that is they are like the shepherd’s daughter they try to use their beauty to move up in the classes (ACTIV, SCENE IV). Yet even here, the wording and organization of the play do not seem to be making fun of the shepherd or his way of life. In fact, at this critical point where Polixenes and Camillo disguise themselves, the shepherd is having what essentially amounts to a party after having shorn his sheep. This is not something that Shakespeare would have most likely included had he been making the pastoral a comedic effect as in As You Like It. Indeed, Shakespeare even include the elevation of the Shepherd and his son to the status of lords for raising the King’s daughter. This adds an element of class mobility to the play, which is interesting, especially in comparison to As You Like It which specifically has people remaining in their respective classes. Yet, even with this significant difference there is still an underlying theme that the pastoral is something that is definitely for peasants and people who are not of more royal blood. This difference could be due to the type of play or to the time in Shakespeare’s life when each was written.

In As You Like It, Shakespeare uses the pastoral life as a comedic effect, but also a way to move the plot along. Since this play is a comedy, the usage of the pastoral for comedic effect makes sense. In addition, in this play the main character merely dresses as a shepherd, while in actuality she is a lady. This in turn brings an entirely different purpose to the play. The pastoral life is made as a bit of a joke in this instance. He purposely creates issues that the shepherds have to deal with, but in a way, that is not something within their purview. The shepherds are seen as rough and not gentlemanlike, which is what creates many of the issues Shakespeare introduces. The pastoral life is shown in direct contrast to the life of the court, where the court is full of gentlemen and ladies and manners and the pastoral life is essentially a rag tag group living on the outskirts. As You Like It makes a parody of multiple different professions, but the pastoral life is the worst in that the mockery is made using shepherds and shepherdesses as well as court members dressed as those in this life. In addition to all of this, there is also the issue with Rosalind tricking Orlando and advising him on how to woo her by acting like a guy. Under the guise of a shepherd she says to Orlando, “Look you lisp, and wear strange suits,” in which she pokes fun at the idea of him dressing like a courtier even when in the middle of the forest. (ACT IV, Scene I) Yet even this humor is more of a sarcastic kind of humor that is perpetrated by one of the upper-class characters masquerading in the pastoral life. Hence, here is yet another mockery of the life, pulling courtiers in full dress and manners into situations which do not fit either their personalities nor their ideals. This also forces those in the pastoral life to contend with the courtiers, which completely mixes up how they interact and creates a dichotomy in the personalities.

As stated before, these two plays were written at very different times in Shakespeare’s life. This could have also affected his use of the pastoral, as his ideas about the pastoral could have changed in his lifetime and particularly between when he wrote these different plays. As You Like It was written earlier than The Winter’s Tale and thus the use of the pastoral for comedic effect could have been more influenced by his childhood and prejudices at the time. With The Winter’s Tale Shakespeare was both older and had written more plays, thus probably understanding what would be better as a device and what would provide the play with the needed plot devices and ideals. Certain plot points and phrases do indicate a certain difference in the respect given to the pastoral life in each of the plays. In As You Like It, “That young swain that you saw…/ That little cares for buying anything,” (ACT II, Scene IV) provides a setting of the shepherd seemingly being a stooge and too sick in love to care about his fortunes, while in The Winter’s Tale the shepherd gives a feast. “And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing, / As your good flock shall prosper,”(ACT IV, Scene III) is the shepherd’s way of saying good fortune onto those who came to the feast. Each section of the plays that relies upon the pastoral life is different too. In As You Like It the pastoral life is a joke and the shepherd is seen as being uneducated and as not having good manners, which is in direct contrast to how the upper level of society is seen. The pastoral life is also a setting where the upper class have gone when they are banished. This again adds to the overall idea that the pastoral life is not wanted. In The Winter Tale the shepherds are not necessarily seen as less mannered and the main shepherd actually becomes a lord later in the play. However, this class change is interesting because it almost suggests that a shepherd is not good enough to raise the daughter of the king, though the king is grateful, this again an interesting dichotomy. These show how in each of the plays Shakespeare treated the pastoral life differently.

In comparison both plays use the pastoral life as a significant plot device, however, one uses it as a way to directly affect the plot line, while the other merely provides a way for the significant passage of time to make sense. In addition, in As You Like It the person in charge, in this case a Duke rather than a King is banished and also having to live his life in the wilderness. This idea could have also affected how Shakespeare used the pastoral, because in The Winter’s Tale the shepherd becomes a lord at the end, showing some class mobility, while in As You Like It the interloper that banished the duke ended up abdicating back to the duke, thus returning the classes to what they would have been. This is a significant difference in the plays. Class mobility is always possible in the downwards direction but the fact that Shakespeare included this in his play is somewhat interesting especially when running the comparison between these two plays. Something else that is interesting with the forest and pastoral life in As You Like It is the wannabe philosopher who lives in the forest with the duke’s entourage until the duke is recalled. This adds to the idea of the peasant or everyday man being a fool, but not in the funny and over the top way of the jesters and clowns, but in a way, that actually suggests that they are dumb. This is different in relation to The Winter’s Tale as the son of the shepherd is a clown, but in the way that the court clowns and jesters are funny even though he is still a fool. Since Shakespeare wrote both of these plays at very different times there are different prejudices and thoughts that affected him at each of these times.

These two plays provide a basic comparison between two incredibly different genres provided in the similar setting. This also shows how Shakespeare’s thoughts changed over the course of his career, which provides another interesting comparison. Lastly, the basis of these plays on the Ancient Greeks and Romans adds an entirely different element that creates more dichotomy between the pastoral life and the court life. However, even with all of these differences there are similarities in the underlying facets of the plays. Both plays do suggest the fool as a peasant, in slightly different ways, but the base idea is the same.  While both plays do suggest similar values regarded in the pastoral, there difference is significant enough to merit the discussion of shifting ideals even with regards to the different genres.