Shakespeare's "As You Like It" and "Twelfth Night".

When speaking about Cleopatra's undying charm, Enobarbus stated,

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale

Her infinite variety

This is how many readers feel about the heroines in Shakespeare's comedies. In both Twelfth Night and As You Like It the action revolves around strong female characters. Both Viola and Rosalind show immense strength, courage and power highly uncharacteristic of women in Elizabethan literature. In addition to their strength, the women also retain traditional feminine characteristics. Despite their many similar traits, many differences can also be found in the characterization of Viola and Rosalind.

In the exposition of As You Like It, we discover that Rosalind's father the Duke of Burgundy has been exiled by his brother Duke Frederick. Even though Rosalind is initially permitted to stay because of her close relationship with the Duke's daughter Celia, the Duke's allowance is quickly revoked and Rosalind is forced to join her father in exile in the forest of Arden. Since it would not be safe for a woman to travel unaccompanied the wise Rosalind stated

Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold [I.iii 112]

and decided to dress as a man and call herself Ganymede. When confronted with a similar situation Viola from the Twelfth Night took similar actions. Viola finds herself ship-wrecked and alone and yet the first words out of her mouth

What country, friends, is this? [I.ii 1]

convey a certain calmness and rationality. Since like Rosalind, it is not safe for Viola to wander the countryside alone, she decides to dress as a man and work as a page under the name Cesario. Viola finds herself completely dependent on herself however it is her instinct to except rather than challenge circumstances. Finding herself in a difficult position in a strange country, she spends little time bemoaning the harshness of her fate, but immediately sets to work with characteristic practical energy to figure out a way to improve her situation.

In order to appreciate Shakespeare's critique of melancholy, self-loathing, unrequited love, we must first accept the idea of love at first sight. Orlando may have overthrown Charles the wrestler but most importantly, he had conquered Rosalind's heart. As Rosalind herself said:

Sir, you have wrestled well and overthrown

More than your enemies. [II.ii 265]

Similar to this is the way Viola quickly fell in love with Orsino. Viola's love is evident in her statement:

I'll do my best

To woo your lady. Yet, a barful strife!

Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife. [I.iv 40]

This proposed a particularly difficult knot to untie because the fact that Viola loves the Duke who loves Olivia who, in turn, loves Viola. Another similarity is found in that Orlando does not see through Rosalind's disguise any more than Orsino or Olivia see through Viola's, despite Viola's urgent hinting about her identity.

Despite the similarities in the situations of the heroines, there remains one prominent difference. Viola has far less freedom and authority than Rosalind does. Viola may be dressed up as a man, but Cesario is a servant to the man she loves and has to act accordingly. Therefore, she cannot challenge him directly or engage in complex role-playing games as Rosalind can freely do. In addition, Viola's situation is further complicated by the affections of Olivia because Olivia is a person of authority and therefore Viola cannot confront Olivia without offending Orsino. Where as Rosalind has the class authority to curtly dismiss the affections of Phoebe.

Because Viola cannot take charge of her courtship as Rosalind can, she is in a sense more passive in that way. Viola has to hang on in the shifting circumstances and hope things will work out in the end. The happy outcome in the end of Twelfth Night is less a tribute to Viola's ability to shape events than to her faith in love and her ability to endure in difficult circumstances. Rosalind, by comparison, is in charge of the action in As You Like It. Helped in part by the setting in the fantastical forest of Arden, she can determine the schedule of her meetings with Orlando, set the rules, especially linguistically, and decide when to reveal her identity. Knowing all this from the start, Rosalind does not have to wait for circumstances to sort themselves out for she has the freedom and power to set the circumstances herself.

The central issue in the courtship of Viola and Orsino, as in the courtship of Rosalind and Orlando, is the need to educate the man out of his excessively sentimental vision of love so that he reaches a sharper, more intelligent vision of the reality of the experience. The very first words in Twelfth Night,

If music be the food of love, play on. [I.i 1]

is evidence that Orsino is in love with being in-love. Viola therefore in falling for Orsino becomes the teacher demonstrating how his pining for Olivia is not what love truly is. When she enters Orsino's service, her talent, wit, and good looks quickly captivate him, just as, soon after, when she's sent to "woo" Olivia, these qualities also entrance the Countess. Skeptical of the tragedy of love herself, Rosalind believes in loves comedy, and she intends to play her comic role so broadly that Orlando will never be certain of his wife's mood. She states:

I will be more

jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigion

over his hen, more clamorous than a parrot

against rain, more newfangled than an ape, more

giddy in my desires than a monkey. I will weep for

nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do

that when you are disposes to be merry; I will laugh

like a hyen, and that when thou art inclined to sleep. [IV.iii 150]

By the end of both plays, the man has learned to alter the language with which he expresses his feelings and most importantly a transformation of the understanding of his own feelings. However the difference lies in that Orsino shares with his page his most intimate thoughts, while Orlando never progresses beyond a freshman's status in his schooling by Rosalind, who does most of the talking and all of the professing.

Viola's sense of the softness and frailty of women is very different from Rosalind's. Her sense of personally vulnerability explains why she can take seriously Orsino's idealization of what is fragile and fleeting in feminine beauty and why she listens without ironic rejoinder to his lectures on the passions. She is not tempted to smile or patronize him when he opens his heart to her; on the contrary at those moments they are one soul. He dreams of a women he can love profoundly while she touches his heart with a lovely fairy tale of a sister who, unwilling to declare her love, dies of a broken heart.

Just like the heroine's teach their lovers the value of love, they also teach love lessons to other characters. Despite the difference in class mentioned above, Viola uses wit to help remove Olivia from her self-righteous pedestal. An example of this is when Viola first enters Olivia's house, she takes a cut at her ego by asking who was

The honorable lady of the house. [I.v 13]

Both Olivia and Viola are subjected to Orsino's hopeless passion but Viola is too cheerful to give in to self-pity. Similar to this is the comments Rosalind makes to Phebe, teaching the girl the dangers of pride and vanity she says:

'Tis not her glass, but you, that flatters her,

And out of you she sees herself more proper

Than any of her lineaments can show her.

But, mistress, know yourself. Down on your knees

And thank Heaven, fasting, for a good man's love. [III.v 54-59]

It is important to notice such rebukes on character because it brings out the flawlessness of our two heroines.

Viola is distinguishable from Rosalind because there is a strain of gentleness, of sweetness, even humility there. Viola does not pretend to be the master of her fate, she even states that she would die a thousand deaths to give her master a piece. In addition, Viola is much more compassionate in her trials and difficulties than Rosalind is. This is evident in her soliloquy at the end of Act II scene ii in which through the use of sympathetic humor she shows a lack of sentimentality and self-pity. She states:

Poor lady, she were better love a dream.

Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness...

And I, poor monster, found as much on him,

And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me. [26-37]

The use of the word "monster" shows Viola's charter in that she shows more pity for Orsino and Olivia than she does for herself. Viola's femininity is characterized in her reluctance to engage in the duel, however she does draw her sword choosing to participate rather than disclose her identity secret.

In almost every scene in which she appears, whether she's jesting with Feste, quietly philosophizing with Orsino, or gracefully flattering Olivia, Viola's courtly skill and down-to-earth charm are clearly evident. Despite their differences, Rosalind is without a doubt Viola's match in character. Rosalind controls the action throughout the play, using her wit and charm to teach others around her the meaning of love.