Rosalynde | Page 7

play ends
differently from the romance, as befits a comedy, the usurping duke
being converted instead of being killed in battle.
It was, however, in the characterization that Shakespeare departed most
widely from the romance. The most obvious change was in the names
of the characters. Rosader appears as Orlando, Saladyne as Oliver,
Torismond as Duke Frederick, Gerismond as the banished Duke,
Alinda as Celia, Montanus as Silvius, and Corydon is shortened to
Corin. Of much greater significance than the changes in the names of
the characters are the additions and changes in the list of dramatis
personae. Nine characters are added outright--Dennis, Le Beau,

Amiens, the First Lord, Sir Oliver Martext, William, Audrey,
Touchstone, and Jaques. The latter is most noteworthy. Hazlitt calls
him the only purely contemplative character Shakespeare ever drew.
From the beginning to the end of the play he does absolutely nothing
except to think and moralize. Another critic has said, "Shakespeare
designed Jaques to be a maker of fine sentiments, a dresser forth in
sweet language of the ordinary commonplaces...." It has been
suggested,[1] not without some show of reason, that Shakespeare in
adapting Lodge's romance for the stage purposely included in the list of
dramatis personae a character bearing a strong resemblance to Euphues,
the pretended author of the romance. "Like Euphues, Jaques has made
false steps in youth, which have somewhat darkened his views of life;
like Euphues, he conceals under a veil of sententious satire a real
goodness of heart, shown in his action toward Audrey and Touchstone.
A traveler, like Euphues, he has a melancholy of his own, compounded
of many simples, extracted from many objects, and is prepared, like his
prototype, to lecture his contemporaries on every theme."
[Footnote 1: Seccombe and Allen, "The Age of Shakespeare," Vol. I, p.
119.]
Scarcely less significant are the changes that Shakespeare made in the
characteristics of the dramatis personae. The motive of the elder
brother in mistreating the younger he makes envy, not avarice as in the
romance, a substitution due to his desire to unify the action by drawing
a parallel between the brothers and the dukes. The superiority of
Shakespeare's Rosalind to Lodge's delineation of the character has,
perhaps, been slightly overestimated. To describe Lodge's Rosalynde as
"a colorless being, incapable of entering into the spirit of her part"[1] is
really too severe a condemnation. Of course Lodge's heroine does lack
the exquisite charm of saucy playfulness coupled with gentle
womanliness that makes Shakespeare's Rosalind perhaps the most
popular heroine of English comedy. Yet Lodge furnished to
Shakespeare far more than a name for his heroine. In the dialogue
between Ganymede (Rosalynde) and Aliena there is a good deal of
lively banter that must have furnished more than a suggestion for the
teasing playfulness of Rosalind in the play. Such, for example, is the

conversation between the two girls upon finding a love poem "carved
on a pine tree."[2] As in the drama, Rosalynde's wit is always
sharpened by the presence of her lover. Often her tone of raillery is
noticeably similar to that of Shakespeare's heroine.[3]
[Footnote 1: W.G. Stone, Transactions of the New Shakspere Society,
1880-1886, pp. 277-293.]
[Footnote 2: P. 29. Compare the speech of Ganymede (Rosalynde) with
Rosalind's speech in "As You Like It," III, ii, 367-381.]
[Footnote 3: Compare "Rosalynde," pp. 63-64, with "As You Like It,"
IV, i, 80-93.]
Upon a careful study of "Rosalynde" one cannot avoid the conviction
that in selecting it as the basis for "As You Like It" Shakespeare
displayed a sound judgment. Not only is it a good story of its kind, but
it lends itself readily to dramatic adaptation. In adapting it Shakespeare
made of it something quite different and incalculably more valuable
than the romance. Yet "Rosalynde" is still in its way charming, and an
appreciation of its charm may, instead of lessening our reverence for
Shakespeare's genius, really increase it by leading us to see as he did
the freshness and beauty as well as the dramatic possibilities of the
story.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ANGLIA. Vol. X, pp. 235-289.
BULLEN. Lyrics from the Dramatists of the Elizabethan Age, London,
1901.
CHAMBERS. English Pastorals, London, 1906.
DUNLOP. History of Prose Fiction (revised edition), London and New
York, 1888.
GOSSE. "Seventeenth-Century Studies" (new edition), London, 1895.

GREG. Lodge's "Rosalynde," being the Original of Shakespeare's "As
You Like It," London, 1907.
JUSSERAND. The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare, London
and New York, 1890.
LANG. Idylls of Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus (Golden Treasury
Series), London, 1901.
LODGE. Reprint of Complete Works (excepting the translations of
Seneca, Josephus, and Du Bartas), Glasgow, 1875-1882.
MARKS. English Pastoral Drama, London, 1908.
SAINTSBURY. Elizabethan Literature, London and New York, 1902.
WARREN. A History of the Novel, previous to the Seventeenth
Century, New York, 1895.
THE PUBLISHED WORKS