Contrary Notions of Identity in As You like It - Yavanika

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MARK BRACHER 239 other and a recognition of the other's intrinsic right to be other than oneself. Thus the courtier will accommodate all degrees of opposing points of view, right up to the Lie Direct. And even the Lie Direct need not result in a quarrel, if both parties realize that all opinions are ultimately relative, and allow themselves to differ, permitting each other to remain other. Differences need not be resolved. Arguments can end in a manner other than the victory of one party and the defeat of the other: they can end with both parties acknowledging that they disagree. Even Jaques shares this realization at the end, when, instead of railing at the dancers, he simply declares, "I am for other than for dancing measures" (V.iv. 193) and withdraws. The final word should not be: I say this, and you are wrong to say that; but rather, as one of the adversaries realizes: If you say that, then I say this, and that's how we stand. Let's shake hands and be brothers (lines 96-102). Touchstone here modifies his earlier dictum on the nature of the self. He does not retract his assertion that "ipse is he: [and] you are not ipse, for I am he" - that individual selves are inherently distinct and thus in certain ways opposed. But he does deny that this opposition must of necessity dominate human existence. Mutuality and friendship can supersede opposition and difference if individuals will but acknowledge and accept that very opposition and difference. The recognition that every perspective is relative, and the willingness to admit the conditionality of one's own position, is the basis of peace, as Touchstone realizes: "Your If is the only peacemaker. Much virtue in If" (V.iv. 102-103).37 The significance of Touchstone's disquisition is immediately attested to by Duke Senior, who remarks, "He uses his folly like a stalking horse and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit" (V.iv. 106-107). The value of Touchstone's insight and its relation to the theme of love is further indicated by Hymen, who appears and sanctifies - almost in response to Touchstone, it seems - the notion of inclusiveness: "Then is there mirth in heaven / When earthly things made even / Atone together" (V.iv. 108-110). Inclusiveness, or atonement, is seen to accord with the ultimate nature of things: it produces mirth in heaven. And the simple juxtaposition of Touchstone's speech with the appearance of Hymen indicates once again that a fundamental relativism is a prerequisite to love. Before one can love, one must be open to the loved one's otherness and allow the loved one to be different. 37Maura Slattery Kuhn, in "Much Virtue in 'If," SQ 28 (Winter 1977):40-50, points to another indication of the play's relativism with her observation that "an untypically large number of If's appear in this play, more than in any other play by Shakespeare, both in absolute frequency and in relative frequency," p. 44. This content downloaded on Thu, 7 Mar 2013 13:10:36 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
240 IDENTITY IN AS YOU L IKE IT The company seem to have realized this fact and have taken Touchstone's words to heart, for they respond to Hymen's song with a litany of Ifs (V.iv. 118-24). Having renounced the absolute in favor of the relative, the exclusive self in favor of the inclusive, the lovers are prepared for marriage, the ultimate instance of the inclusiveness of identities. Hymen pairs off the couples and sings a paean to "High Wedlock" (V.iv.146) which reminds us that "'Tis Hymen peoples every town"-that without the "blessed bond of board and bed" (V.iv. 142-143), this union of inclusive selves (united also at the biological level), we would not exist. The play's final scene thus argues for the necessary priority of the inclusive self, without which there would be no society, and ultimately, no continuation of life. This argument is recapitulated at the end by the final dispensation of the antagonists, which reiterates - and, moreover, embodies -the inclusiveness of the play's guiding spirit. As the play ends, the news arrives that Duke Frederick, the play's highest ranking embodiment of the closed self of hatred, has been converted (rather than killed, as in Lodge), and Jaques, the play's chief exponent of the satiric vision of human being, realizes that "out of these convertites / There is much matter to be heard and learned" (V.iv. 184-85) and gracefully retires. Thus in Touchstone's speech and marriage, Frederick's conversion, and Jaques's humble withdrawal, as well as in Oliver's conversion, the play's exclusive and satiric elements submit to the more inclusive and magnanimous agents of Shakespeare's romantic comedy; and we the audience participate in a perspective from which life-our very being-is experienced as a process which, although in certain ways exclusive, is fundamentally a matter of openness and inclusion. This content downloaded on Thu, 7 Mar 2013 13:10:36 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
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Contrary Notions of Identity in As You like It - Yavanika

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