Today is April Fool’s Day.
While we’re not engaging in pranks, we’re taking this opportunity to consider a famous fool, an exploration particularly relevant given Soulton Hall’s connection to Shakespeare’s As You Like It, via both the historical figure of Old Sir Rowland and the source text Rosalynde (1590) by Thomas Lodge, a writer of this parish.
Audrey, Touchstone, The Orlando and Rosalind figures from Jacob Chandler’s AS YOU LIKE IT dancers.
Touchstone, the jester in this beloved comedy, offers a wealth of “foolish wisdom” that continues to resonate.
ROSALIND
Well, this is the forest of Arden.TOUCHSTONE
Ay, now am I in Arden; the more fool I; when I was
at home, I was in a better place: but travellers
must be content.
Touchstone’s arrival in the Forest of Arden immediately establishes his pragmatic and often cynical perspective. Unlike Rosalind’s perhaps hopeful pronouncement, Touchstone views their new environment with a degree of self-deprecation (… and possibly elite metropolitan contempt), suggesting a preference for the familiar comforts of the court. His concluding remark acknowledges the necessity of their situation without embracing any romantic ideals associated with the pastoral setting… we don’t agree, naturally!
TOUCHSTONE
When a man’s verses cannot be understood, ..…
…it strikes a man more dead than a
great reckoning in a little room. Truly, I would
the gods had made thee poetical.
AUDREY
I do not know what ‘poetical’ is: is it honest in
deed and word? is it a true thing?TOUCHSTONE
No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most
feigning; and lovers are given to poetry, and what
they swear in poetry may be said as lovers they do feign.
In his exchange with Audrey, Touchstone elaborates on his skeptical view of poetic expression, particularly in the context of love.
It is common place that Touchstone’s vivid image of being struck “more dead than a great reckoning in a little room” is a poignant reference to the death of the playwright Christopher Marlowe, who was famously killed in a small room over a disputed bill.
This subtle tribute to Marlowe, a significant influence on Shakespeare, underscores the depth and literary awareness embedded within the play.
It is less common place that this attack on poetry by touchstone is a call back to a work by Thomas Lodge Jr, whose source text is being deployed in the play, because he wrote A Defence of Poetry, Music, and Stage Plays in 1575, (which is earlier and often overshadowed by Sir Philip Sidney’s An Apology for Poetry (also known as The Defence of Poesy), tought to have been written around 1580 and published posthumously in 1595. This highlights Touchstone’s cynicism towards romantic sentimentality and artifice, a perspective that offers a counterpoint to the often idealized portrayals of love found within the play and likely debated within the intellectual life of landed estates, perhaps even considered within the literary context established by Lodge’s Rosalynde.
Touchstones’s subsequent lament that Audrey is not “poetical” introduces his skeptical view of poetic expression, particularly in the context of love, a theme that would have undoubtedly been explored and appreciated in the literary circles connected to estates within this parish and beyond, perhaps even finding resonance with the literary endeavors of figures like Thomas Lodge.
Touchstone equates poetry with “feigning,” contrasting it with Audrey’s earnest (or knowing and coquettish?) understanding of language as a vehicle for truth:
TOUCHSTONE
Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut
were to put good meat into an unclean dish.AUDREY
I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.TOUCHSTONE
Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness!
sluttishness may come hereafter.
Touchstone’s detailed and contradictory assessment of the shepherd’s life reveals his critical perspective on both rural and courtly existence.
Ah, this delightful exchange between the ever-probing Touchstone and the grounded shepherd Corin offers a fertile patch for a bit of gentle ribbing aimed at the overly cerebral. Observe, if you will, the stark contrast in their approaches to understanding the world.
Touchstone, the courtly wit transplanted to the pastoral, cannot resist the urge to intellectualize even the simplest existence. His grand query, “Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?” carries the implicit assumption that true understanding requires formal systems of thought, perhaps learned treatises and convoluted theories debated in hushed academic halls or wielded with rhetorical flourish in the political arena. He expects, perhaps, a discourse on ethics or metaphysics, something suitably weighty to dissect and dissect again with his sophisticated (and often self-serving) logic.
What he receives instead from Corin is a philosophy distilled not from dusty tomes but from direct observation and the unvarnished realities of daily life. Corin’s “philosophy” is a series of self-evident truths, so basic they almost feel like stating the obvious: sickness brings discomfort, poverty isolates, rain makes things wet, fire burns, good grazing fattens sheep, and the absence of the sun causes night. These are not grand pronouncements debated in parliament or dissected in scholarly journals; they are the fundamental building blocks of a shepherd’s understanding of his world, gleaned through experience and necessity.
Herein lies the gentle mockery for those of us prone to intellectual grandstanding.
CORIN
And how like you this shepherd’s life, Master Touchstone?
TOUCHSTONE
Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good
life, but in respect that it is a shepherd’s life,
it is naught. In respect that it is solitary, I
like it very well; but in respect that it is
private, it is a very vile life. Now, in respect it
is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in
respect it is not in the court, it is tedious. As
is it a spare life, look you, it fits my humour well;
but as there is no more plenty in it, it goes much
against my stomach. Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?
CORIN
No more but that I know the more one sickens the
worse at ease he is; and that he that wants money,
means and content is without three good friends;
that the property of rain is to wet and fire to
burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep, and that a
great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that
he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art may
complain of good breeding or comes of a very dull kindred.
TOUCHSTONE
Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast ever in
court, shepherd?
CORIN
No, truly.
TOUCHSTONE
Then thou art damned.
CORIN
Nay, I hope.
TOUCHSTONE
Truly, thou art damned like an ill-roasted egg, all
on one side.
CORIN
For not being at court? Your reason.
TOUCHSTONE
Why, if thou never wast at court, thou never sawest
good manners; if thou never sawest good manners,
then thy manners must be wicked; and wickedness is
sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous
state, shepherd.
CORIN
Not a whit, Touchstone: those that are good manners
at the court are as ridiculous in the country as the
behavior of the country is most mockable at the
court. You told me you salute not at the court, but
you kiss your hands: that courtesy would be
uncleanly, if courtiers were shepherds.
His pronouncement of Corin’s damnation for never having been to court satirizes social hierarchies and the perceived importance of courtly manners, a notion effectively countered by Corin’s pragmatic response regarding the relativity of social customs. These considerations of social standing and the value of different ways of life would have been pertinent to the inhabitants and visitors of grand houses like Soulton Hall, nestled within this parish that also gave rise to the source material for As You Like It, offering a point of reflection on their own position within the social fabric and the literary world.
ROSALIND
Ay, marry, now unmuzzle your wisdom.
TOUCHSTONE
Stand you both forth now: stroke your chins, and
swear by your beards that I am a knave.
CELIA
By our beards, if we had them, thou art.
TOUCHSTONE
By my knavery, if I had it, then I were; but if you
swear by that that is not, you are not forsworn: no
more was this knight swearing by his honour, for he
never had any; or if he had, he had sworn it away
before ever he saw those pancakes or that mustard.
CELIA
Prithee, who is’t that thou meanest?
TOUCHSTONE
One that old Frederick, your father, loves.
CELIA
My father’s love is enough to honour him: enough!
speak no more of him; you’ll be whipped for taxation
one of these days.
TOUCHSTONE
The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what
wise men do foolishly.
This final exchange demonstrates Touchstone’s skill in using playful logic to expose hypocrisy, particularly concerning abstract concepts like honor. His concluding remark highlights the unique position of the fool who can speak uncomfortable truths, often dismissed by those in power. The very act of considering such a figure on April Fool’s Day, especially within the context of our study related to Soulton Hall and its literary connections to both Shakespeare’s play and Lodge’s original narrative from this parish, encourages us to look beyond superficial jest and consider the deeper societal critiques embedded within these enduring works.
Published on this April Fool’s Day, and with a clear connection to Soulton Hall’s place within the literary landscape of this parish – a parish that nurtured the very source of As You Like It – this analysis suggests that Touchstone’s “foolish” pronouncements offer a consistent and insightful commentary on the themes of the play, providing a grounded and often cynical perspective that challenges the play’s more idealized elements. His wit, while entertaining, serves as a vehicle for social critique and a reminder of the complexities of human nature, even containing subtle literary acknowledgements within its seemingly lighthearted delivery, all of which would have found an engaged audience within the historically rich context we are exploring in relation to this local estate and its literary heritage.
