Celia
in
As You Like It
Celia, Jaques, Celia,
Jaques. Which one do I want to look at
here? Jaques is definitely tempting. His
“All the world’s a stage” monolog is deservedly one of Shakespeare’s most famous
and Jaques is so very morose and melancholy.
Harold Bloom, of course, thinks he’s a fake and I could therefore
protest and show that Jaques’ melancholy is genuine but I don’t have to argue
against Bloom every time. Jan Kott rightly analyzes Jaques as the forerunner of
a bitter Hamlet and the only character in the play who has no reason to leave
the alienation of the forest (Kott, pages 285-286). So that’s why, I find, that
I won’t choose Jaques. Kott and others have dealt well with him.
Celia, on the other hand,
hasn’t at all been given the attention she should have, as far as I can see.
And what has been written tends to emphasize an interpretation of her
relationship with Rosalind as homoerotic. Maybe it is. But that’s not what I
find interesting. What I like is that
Celia takes the initiative in heading out into a new world and changing her
life. And she has some great retorts,
mainly to Rosalind who, granted, is one of Shakespeare’s greatest creations,
but where would she be without Celia?
First a brief summary of
the story. It’s another one of
Shakespeare’s silly romance comedies with women dressing up as men, in this
case Rosalind who must flee her evil uncle Duke Frederick - Celia’s father - to
join her own exiled father in the forest.
Orlando too must
flee his nasty brother Oliver and
Duke Frederick. Rosalind and Orlando fall for each other – don’t bother asking
why they have to go through all the rigmarole of Rosalind pretending to be a
man pretending to be Rosalind so Orlando can woo her (I told you it was
silly). Four loving couples are in any
case wed in the end.
What makes the play more
than a silly pastoral romance is, as always, the darkness within which it is
framed and the feistiness of the characters. Being banished to a forest was no
picnic and Rosalind is rightly grieving at the loss of her father when we meet
her in the first act and Celia is trying to give her the strength to go on. Claiming
that Rosalind should accept Celia’s father out of cousinly love is a shaky
argument, seeing what Uncle Frederick has done, but it works on Rosalind who
decides to cheer up. Celia goes on to say that everything she has or will
inherit is Rosalind’s.
This first exchange
continues and Rosalind suggests they talk about falling in love. Celia, not as
romantic as her cousin, would rather talk about more prosaic subjects like
looks and morals. She suggests that they “ …mock the good housewife Fortune
from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally” (Act 1.2). Nice
line but sadly Celia isn’t expressing socialist leanings here. She means the
unequal distribution of beauty and chastity: “for those she makes fair she
scarce makes honest, and those that she makes honest she makes very ill-favouredly”
(Act 1.2)
The two young women are
trying to lighten up their spirits with this amusing dialog but Celia nicely
sums up the rigid dilemma of the roles women in her society have to deal with,
which is what the play is mostly about.
In the following banter
with Touchstone, Celia again proves to
be the more receptive of the two cousins by seeing through the clown’s babble
and recognizing that he “sayest true; since the little wit that fools have was
silenced, the little foolery that wise men have makes a great show” (Act 1.2).
The Norton edition’s note explains that this is a possible reference to the
Bishop of London’s order to burn books in 1599, which would give Celia a
political mind that Rosalind doesn’t display.
In the first encounter
with Orlando as well Celia is the stronger character. She urges Orlando not to wrestle; Rosalind
agrees. While he and the mighty Charles are wrestling Rosalind falls in love:
“O excellent young man!” while Celia is ready for concrete assistance: “I would
I were invisible, to catch the strong fellow by the leg,” and “If I had a
thunderbolt in mine eye, I can tell you who should down.” (Act 1.2) And when,
after his victory, Orlando is insulted by Duke Frederick, Celia is the one who
takes the initiative in supporting him:
“Let us go thank him, and encourage him.
My father’s rough and envious disposition
Sticks me at heart…” (Act 1.2).
Without Celia, would
Rosalind ever have had the chance to fall for Orlando? But fall she does and Celia begins her role
of trying to poke holes in Rosalind’s rosy balloons of romance:
Celia: O, a
good wish upon you! You will try in
time, in despite of a fall. But turning these jests out of service, let us talk
in good earnest. Is it possible on such a sudden you should fall into so strong
a liking with old Sir Rowland’s youngest son?
Rosalind: The
Duke my father loved his father dearly.
Celia: Doth it
therefore ensue that you should love his son dearly? By this kind of chase I
should hate him, for my father hated his father dearly, yet I hate not Orlando
(Act 1.3)
Not only is Celia being
sensible but she is already revealing a spirit of independence, even resistance,
towards her father that doesn’t fit the stereotype we have of submissive
daughters.
She continues this
resistance when Duke Frederick then enters the room and banishes Rosalind.
Rosalind protests too, a little. But she has no
choice. Banished, she is. Celia, on the
other hand, is not. When she tries to
convince her father that she and her cousin are inseparable, he replies that
she will be better off without Rosalind who outshines her in beauty and
popularity. Nice. He of course stands firm in the banishment and Celia tells
him, “Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege. I cannot live out of her
company” (Act 1.3).
Duke Frederick simply replies, “You are a fool,” and exits. Celia vows
loyalty to Rosalind, who is uncertain what to do – “Why, whither shall we go?”
So far Rosalind has shown none of the quick-thinking determination for which
she is so famous. Instead, it is again Celia who takes the truly brave and
daring first step: “To seek my uncle in the forest of Ardenne.” Rosalind protests:
Alas, what danger will it be to us,
Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!
Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
Celia’s quick solution: “I’ll put
myself in poor and wear attire.” Finally
Rosalind gets into the spirit of things and comes up with her gender-crossing
idea. And Celia with her own alias, “Aliena”. The estranged one. How much this
young woman is estranged in her society could – and should – fill a book
especially in view of her lines that close Scene 3 and Act One:
…Let’s away,
And get our jewels and our wealth together,
Devise the fittest time and safest way
To hide us from the pursuit that will be made
After my flight.
Now go we in content,
To liberty, and not to banishment. (Act 1.3)
Estranged. Hide. Pursuit. Flight. Content. Liberty. Has
anyone, even Shakespeare, ever strung together in a just a few lines a list of
more significant words to describe women’s lives throughout history?
Thus in the first act
Celia is established as one of Shakespeare’s most significant characters and
although Rosalind takes the center stage more or less completely through much
of the remaining play, Celia is still there and in Act Two confirms her liberty
and independence from her father and his court.
Rosalind offers to buy the cottage, pasture and sheep from which Corin
ekes out his living and Celia declares that if he will continue to work there
she wants to live there:
And we will mend thy wages. I like this place,
And willingly would waste my time in it (Act 2.4)
The Norton
edition explains that “waste” does not have the negative tone we would give it
but means simply “spend”. And she
does. No mention is made at the end of
the play of Celia returning to court; it is reasonable to assume she stays in
the cottage.
But back to the big
romance which starts sizzling and sparkling between Rosalind/Ganymede and
Orlando. Here we have an interesting circle. What Rosalind does to Orlando’s
wild declarations of love with sarcasm and laconic put downs – for example, the
brief but succinct, “Love is merely a madness” (Act 3.3) and surely the most
famous and funniest, “Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten
them, but not for love” (Act 4.1) – Celia does to Rosalind’s wild declarations of love.
When Rosalind is
frantically trying to get Celia to reveal who has written the ridiculous love
poems all over the forest and obtusely refuses to get it (it’s impossible to
believe she really doesn’t know) Celia bursts out impatiently with a couple of
the best lines in Shakespeare: “O wonderful, wonderful, and most
wonderful-wonderful, and yet again wonderful, and after that out of all
whooping (Act 3.2 – oh how could
Branagh have cut that line out of his film?!).
Her impatience continues
when silly lovesick Rosalind won’t let her get on with her story but repeatedly
interrupts her: “Give me audience, good madam…Cry ‘holla’ to thy tongue…I would
sing my song without a burden; thou brings me out of tune…” (Act 3.2). Who can blame her for being impatient?
Later when Rosalind is
pining for Orlando and wishes to talk about him Celia counters with more irony:
“O, that’s a brave man. He writes brave verses, speaks brave words, swears
brave oaths, and breaks them bravely, quite traverse, athwart the heart of his
lover, as a puny tilter that spurs his horse but on one side breaks his staff,
like a noble goose. But all’s brave that youth mounts, and folly guides” (Act
3.4).
After the odd scene in
which Rosalind urges Celia to perform the mock marriage to Orlando, which she
does reluctantly and curtly, she is irritated with Rosalind: “You have misused
our sex in your love prate,” and when Rosalind continues to moan and sigh,
“Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando. I’ll go find a shadow and
sigh till he come,” Celia retorts in exasperation, “And I’ll sleep” (Act 4.1).
After this snippet of
impertinence Celia doesn’t exactly fade away and she plays her characteristically
active role in her unexpected love affair with nasty-turned-nice Oliver, older
brother to Orlando. But she recedes into the background, her last line being
addressed to him: “Good sir, go with us” (Act 4.3).
Act Five amiably pulls all
of the heartstrings together. Celia and
Oliver are one of the four couples to be brought together in wedded bliss and
Rosalind winds things up with her saucy epilog.
So yes, Rosalind deserves
the praise that raises her to the position of one of Shakespeare’s most beloved
characters. Her brilliance is undisputed (even if her silliness is often
ignored). But in my eyes Celia is no less brilliant, no less witty, and far
feistier.
Shakespeare wouldn’t have
created her like that if he hadn’t thought so too, would he? So when will she
get the attention she deserves?
Works cited:
·
The Norton Shakespeare, based
on the Oxford Edition. Ed. Greenblatt, Stephen et al.
Second edition. 2008.
·
Bloom,
Harold. Shakespeare, the Invention of the Human. 1998.
·
Crawford,
Julie. ”The Homoerotics of Shakespeare’s Elizabethan Comedies” in A Companion to Shakespeare’s Works – The Comedies.
Dutton, Richard and Jean E. Howard, editors. 2003.
·
Kott,
Jan. Shakespeare Our Contemporary.1964.
Films seen:
·
BBC, 1978. Director: Basil
Coleman. Cast: Helen Mirren – Rosalind; Brian Stirner – Orlando; Angharad Rees
– Celia; Richard Pasco – Jaques; Clive Francis – Oliver; Richard Easton – Duke
Frederick. After seeing this the first time
a couple of years ago I noted that I liked it very much. This time I
didn’t. Somehow it struck me as tepid.
Ask me again next time.
·
1936. Director: Paul Czinner.
Cast: Elisabeth Bergner – Rosalind; Lawrence Olivier – Orlando; Sophie Stewart
– Celia; Leon Quartermaine – Jaques; John Laurie – Oliver; Felix Aymler – Duke
Frederick. Better than expected. Beautiful black and white photography. Bergner
much better as Rosalind than the film critics had led me to believe and Olivier
was not only gorgeous but not yet aware (it was his first Shakespeare role on
film) that he was Lawrence-Olivier-the-Big-Shakespeare-Star. Sadly, Stewart
ruined Celia by being giggly, toothy-smiley and altogether juvenile.
·
2006. Director: Kenneth
Branagh. Cast: Bryce Dallas Howard – Rosalind; David Oyelowo– Orlando; Romola
Garai – Celia; Kevin Kline – Jaques; Adrian Lester – Oliver; Brian Blessed –
Duke Frederick. By far the best, no surprise there. Very strong cast who all bring depth to their
roles. I still wish Celia had been allowed all of her lines but Romola Garai is
very good. The filming was lavish, as
usual with Brangh, but the forest was surprisingly and effectively quite barren
at times.
SSeen on stage: No.
