2 - The active and contemplative lives in Shakespeare's plays

Summary

In As You Like It, the usurped Duke Senior, rusticated by his tyrannical younger brother, speaks to his lords in the forest of Arden of the sweet life they now enjoy away from the ‘painted pomp’ and the perils of ‘the envious court’:

Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say,

‘This is no flattery’ – these are my counselors

That feelingly persuade me what I am.

Sweet are the uses of adversity …

And this our life exempt from public haunt

Finds tongues in the trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

(2. 1. 9–12, 15–17)

To which one of the lords of his pastoral court replies, ‘I would not change it’ (2. 1. 18). Nevertheless, at the resolution of the play, when the usurping brother Frederick experiences a sudden conversion of character in the forest, turns to religious life and decides to abandon the pompous court, Duke Senior readily takes back the crown and indicates that he will return to his ducal life.

One of the most important and enduring debates of classical and Renaissance political thought was concerned with the relative merits of the active and contemplative lives. Shakespeare's dramatic engagement with that debate has, surprisingly, largely escaped the attention of critics, even of those dedicated to tracing connections with the ‘political’ and the ‘rhetorical’.