As You Like It: Comedy

Rosalind: "Alas, what danger will it be to us,
                 Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!
                 Beauty proveketh thieves sooner than gold" (I.iii.15).

Though this play was considered a comedy, I found few parts of it to be comedic. It was amusing that Rosalind and Celia dressed as men to disguise their beauty, which in turn caused a woman to fall in love with Rosalind, but other than that nothing else stood out too much. The way that the characters so suddenly fell in love with one another could be considered comedic I guess. Compared to Othello, this play was much different. First off, Othello was a tragedy while this play was a comedy. In Othello, pretty much most of the characters died. Meanwhile, these characters all seemed to just fall in love with someone else. Also, in Othello, I felt like there was a more central, defined theme--that jealousy is a destructive force. In As You Like It, the only theme I can describe this story is that love is complicated. We discussed in class that Shakespeare created this romantic comedy play to please his audience and provide them with something other than a tragedy-something they wanted (hence the title? As you like it?). Yet now that I have finished both of these plays, I have to say that Othello was more entertaining to me. There was a lot more drama and suspense in that play and in As You Like It, the action was less suspenseful and there was not really any defined antagonist or protagonist. Many of the characters underwent some type of conversion (ie Duke Frederick & Oliver) so that no antagonist existed. In conclusion, tragedy > comedy