Forest of Arden as a place of discovery

 The Forest of Arden reflects the state of mind of the various characters. Discuss.

Or

Do you think As You Like It is an attempt to reconcile the ideal with the actual, the idyllic with the real? Give your reasons.

Or "We call As You Like It the only Romance of the Forest." Elaborate. Or

Compare and contrast Arcadian life and court life as portrayed by Shakespeare in As You Like It.

Or 

Arden does not seem very attractive at first sight. It is not a place where the laws of nature are abrogated and roses are without their thorns. Discuss.

Or

Write a note on the Forest of Arden as a place of discovery. What part does Forest of Arden play in As You Like It ? 

 Introduction. Shakespeare's Forest of Arden is an imaginary setting in As You Like It and it is futile and unnecessary to try and find its actual counterpart in the world whether in France Or in England. What matters is that the Forest of Arden has a significant role in At You Like It.

 A Creation from Imagination. The Forest has a great deal of influence on the people who stray into it. We see the shady dark green landscape in the background, and breathe in imagination the fresh air of the forest. The hours are here measured by no clocks, no regulated recurrence of duty or toil; they flow on unnumbered in voluntary occupation or fanciful idleness, to which every one addicts himself according to his humour or disposition; and this unlimited freedom compensates all of them for the lost conveniences of life. One throws himself down solitary under a tree, and indulges in melancholy reflections on the changes of fortune; others make the woods resound with social and festive songs to the accompaniment of their horns. Selfishness, envy, and ambition have been left in the city behind them. The wit of Touchstone is a dainty kind of absurdity worth comparison with the melancholy of Jacques. And Orlando in the beauty and strength of early manhood, and Rosalind-"a gallant curtle axe upon her thigh, a broad spear hen which quicken and restore loyal womanhood, within" in her hand, and the bright tender, our spirits. But upon no one does the air of Arden work so powerfully as upon the banished Duke. He extracts some useful lessons from his life of banishment in the forest. He draws a contrast between the "painted pomp of court life and the life of careless ease in the Forest of Arden. The life at court is full of envy, malice and ambition. But the forest life is sweeter and more "free from peril." Of course the Duke and his followers suffer from the change of seasons. But even when he shrinks from the cold winter wind, he feels it is better than the flattering courtiers. While the courtiers at court are only enemies in disguise, the cold wind is an open enemy and does not flatter him. The Duke also realises the sweet uses of adversity. The forest life has many things to teach Every object in Nature has a lesson of its own. He finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones and good in everything.

First Sight of Arden not Attractive. It is to be noted that the first impression of Arden is not very attractive to any of those who escape to it. "Well, this is the forest of Arden", says Rosalind in apparently unenthusiastic tones. Touchstone calls himself foolish for having come there. The Forest of Arden is no conventional Arcadia It is not a place where the laws of Nature are abrogated and roses are without thorns. Life's roughness is very much in evidence in Arden. The herd abandons the wounded deer. Winter and rough weather, the season's differences, the icy fangs and churlish chiding of the winter's wind invade Arden as often as they invade this hemisphere of ours. Nor does Manna fall to it from heaven. One may come by a sufficient sustenance of flesh, if one has the weapons and the impulse to make a breach in the conventionality of idyllic Nature by killing its own creatures, the deer, to whom the Forest is assigned native dwelling place. Rosalind and Orlando will return to live their adult life in the society of men and in civilization, which will impose upon them the duties of extended social responsibilities.

A Place of Discovery. Arden is not untouched by the world of reality and its sorrows. But it is a place where those who come to it discover certain abiding truths about life. The characters get a conviction that the gay and the gentle can endure the rubs of fortune to find happiness in themselves and in others on this earth. The characters also realize certain truths. The masque of Hymen marks the end of this interlude in the greenwood, and announces the return to a court purged of envy and baseness. As in all comedy the characters realize the truth about themselves through trial and error, and the change is for the better. Thus Rosalind as Ganymede discovers she can play no more but must accept Orlando's love. By loving a shadow, the mere image of a charming youth, Phebe discovers that it is better love than to be loved and scorn one's lover

Dramatic Significance of the Forest of Arden. Like Thomas Hardy's Egdon Heath, Shakespeare's Forest of Arden is not simply a background of the plot; nay it is itself a character, perhaps the most important character of the play. "It has its own soul, a vital breath--that possesses the greatest reformative and constructive power. It reforms the wicked, selfish and cruel Oliver, it softens the aching hearts of the weary pilgrims, who come to it; it brings about a reconciliation between the Dukes, and finally, it is the Forest of Arden which unites the separated lovers-Orlando and Rosalind - infusing a spirit of love into other characters."

Shakespeare's Artistic Devices for Depicting the Forest of Arden: "Other and inferior writers would have worked out their descriptions with all pettiness and impertinence of detail" says Coleridge, regarding the pastoral atmosphere created by Shakespeare In fact Shakespeare has not cared to describe at large these pictures of pastoral scenery : he has as the master artist adopted the unique method of subtle suggestion. By a few strokes of  the painters brush he has succeeded in creating not only the appropriate pastoral back ground but also a vast and vivid woodland scene studded with some landmarks, e.g., the Duke's cave, Rosalind's cottage, the antique oak, and the crawling brook. So superb has been the success of this delineation that we seem to breathe 'the very breath of the woods and the mountains. Public theatres of the Elizabethan age had no painted scenes. The dramatist had thus to depend entirely on his own poetic art and his power of stimulating the imaginative capacity of his audience. 

The Forest of Arden Reveals Real Situation and True Sentiments of Characters. "The dramatist presents us with a pastoral comedy the characters of which, instead of belonging to the ideal pastoral age, are true copies of what nature will produce under similar conditions (Halliwell). The pastoral poet of convention clothed courtiers in shepherds' dress and put into their mouths sentiments of an advanced civilisation. Shakespeare, on the other hand, has given us real shepherds-Corin and William and Audrey, whose language is the language of the fields, whose hands savour of the wood and sheep, and whose persons exhale the odour of the goat-pen or the dairy" as Stanley Wood says. But the characters of Rosalind, Orlando and Duke are certainly ideal ones-although like every ideal, they are based on the actual, they represent experiences idealised.

Conclusion. The world of Arden has not the rarefied atmosphere of an unearthly region; this forest is emphatically real and feelingly earthy. It is subject to the change of seasons; eternal spring does not reign here. The struggle for existence is as acute here as in the city, The shepherd and the shepherdess are not ideal and innocent persons of the golden age breathing the idyllic atmosphere of Arcadia. A heartless coquette like Phebe and an ill-favoured' Audrey easily capable of deserting her true lover for becoming the snobbish wife of a courtier, are found to dwell within its extensive air. Boas says: "The sentimentality of the orthodox pastoral is entirely absent, and in its place we have the ruddy vigour, the leaping pulse and play of the open-air life that loves to live in the sun'. Never has the charm of outdoor existence found more matchless expression."