Love, Life Stages & Nature in Shakespeare's Two Plays

Introduction

This essay examines three major themes shared by William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure and As You Like It: love, the stages of human life, and the contrast between city and country. It explains how Shakespeare develops each of these themes across both plays.

The Theme of Love

Love is a common theme in many of Shakespeare's plays, and these two are no exception. As You Like It is a romantic comedy filled with love and romance, and Shakespeare seems to be saying that love is not always courtly and refined — that it can be bawdy and bring happiness to everyone involved. At the play's end, Rosalind has shown that love is truly a source of absolute happiness: she has successfully arranged four happy marriages and ensured that the government will be more just. She says at the close of the play, "My way is to conjure you and I begin with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of the play as please you; and I charge you, O men, for the love you bear to women... that between you and the women the play may please" (Shakespeare V, iv). She is saying that love pleases everyone who allows it into their lives, and that love is one of the most important things in life.

In a similar vein, Measure for Measure tells the story of love from two perspectives: the love between romantic partners, and the familial love shared between brothers, sisters, and other family members. Shakespeare develops this theme by expressing love among the four main characters in all of its many different forms. Isabella dearly loves her brother Claudio and will do almost anything to save him from his death sentence. At the beginning of the play, Isabella plans to enter a nunnery, which reveals how devout and virtuous she is. She does not approve of what her brother did, but she will stand beside him out of love. She powerfully demonstrates how a person can still love someone while disagreeing with that person's lifestyle or morals — a point that is central to this play's thematic development.

Love is not as light and playful in Measure for Measure as it is in As You Like It, because love is serious too, and to succeed at love, people must take it seriously. Love is probably the most important theme in these two plays because it is universal: everyone in the audience can understand love, even if they have not experienced it firsthand. Because love is such an essential part of life, Shakespeare makes it an essential part of many of his plays.

The Stages of Human Life

Another theme present in both plays is how people change as they mature. Jaques's famous "All the world's a stage" speech speaks directly to the theme of the stages of human life, and it is through this well-known speech that Shakespeare most fully develops this theme. Jaques describes the seven stages of a man's life. He frames them as stages based on age, but he also means that we play out our lives on the stage of life itself. We enter the first stage with nothing, and leave the seventh "Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything" (Shakespeare II, vii). Throughout the play, Shakespeare uses humor and comparison to sustain this theme. Jaques's speech remains a moving account of how quickly and completely human beings can change — and indeed do change in this play.

The same theme carries through Measure for Measure. Isabella must change in order to save her brother. She must set aside her ambition to become a nun, learn how to love, and learn how to sacrifice. Her understanding of the law must also evolve for her to grow. She realizes the laws are not made for everyone when Angelo propositions her. She is shocked, but she will not surrender her virtue even to save her brother: "Which had you rather: the most just law now took your brother's life; or, to redeem him, give up your body to such sweet uncleanness as she that he hath stained?" (Shakespeare II, iv). Her need to change is itself an expression of the theme of life's stages that Shakespeare builds throughout both plays.

Conclusion

Shakespeare uses many themes in his plays to reach his audience and convey important messages about life, love, growth, and happiness. Sometimes he uses humor, as in As You Like It, and sometimes he employs a more dramatic style, as in Measure for Measure. Either way, he always manages to communicate his themes through his characters and the experiences those characters undergo as the play unfolds. His themes matter in the lives of the characters — and in the lives of his audiences as well.

Bibliography

Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. AllShakespeare.com, 2002.

Shakespeare, William. Measure for Measure. OnlineLiterature.com, 2000.