Relationships in Shakespeares As You Like It Essay -- Shakespeare As

Relationships in As You want It Pronounce that sentence on me, my liege. I cannot live out of her company(Shakespeare quoted in Norton Anthology 1611). Who made these remarks about the costly Rosalind, was it Celia, the one whom she calls coz, or is Orlando the man that she is in love with? The question then becomes if Celia said these words what was her meaning. Is it that Celia is attracted to Rosalind as more than a friend or is this mediocre an example of the female friendships of the time? This is a look at the different dynamics of human relationships during the Renaissance. Those relationships of female friends, male bonding and homoeroticism in As You want It. During the Renaissance the friendship between females was very important. At this time in history there came a time when a woman was no yearner considered attractive to a man. When she reaches this point the friendship that she forms between herself and another female takes the place of a marriage. The female f riendship seems to appear in a specifically social form of female chastity which revises the characteristic masculinity of friendship rhetoric in the period (Shannon 658). An example of the friendship that exists between Celia and Rosalind in As You Like It can be found in Act 3 scene 4 lines 1-5 Rosalind Never talk to me. I will weep. Celia Do, I prithee, still yet have the grace to consider that tears do not become a man Rosalind But have I not piddle to weep? Celia As good cause as one would desire therefore weep (Shakespeare quoted in the Norton Anthology 1634) In this conversation Celia takes on the masculine component even though it is Rosalind that is dressed as a man. Celia is very strong at a point... ...ts are still present. It is a difficult situation to produce if a relationship is truly erotic or if it is only the views that our modern society is placing on it. A society in which sex sells and it doesnt matter who the relationship is between. Works Cited Sedgwi ck, Eve. Between Men English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire. New York. Columbia Univ. Press1985 Shannon, Laurie. Emilias Argument Friendship and Human Title in The Two Noble Kinsmen. ELH 64.3 (1997) 657-682 Strout, Nathanial. As You Like It, Rosalynde, and Mutuality. SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 41.2 (2001) 277-295 Traub, Valerie. The Renaissance of Lesbianism in Early advance(a) England. GLQ A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 7.2 (2001) 245-263 Walen, Denise. Constructions of Female Homoerotics in Early Modern Drama. Theatre Journal 54.3 (2002) 411-430