Duke Senior: The Man Who Made Exile Into a Philosophy
First appears: Act 2, Scene 1
Duke Senior has been usurped by his younger brother Frederick and is living in the Forest of Arden with a group of loyal courtiers, hunting deer and eating meals under the trees. He has decided to find this good. 'Sweet are the uses of adversity,' he says in Act 2 Scene 1, arguing that the forest teaches lessons that the corrupt court never could.
Whether this is genuine philosophy or a very good performance of contentment is something the play gently questions. Jaques refuses to believe it. Touchstone thinks the forest is worse. Even Duke Senior's own followers are clearly cold and hungry. He gives them a cheerful moral framework and they follow it, partly because they do not have a better one.
He gets his dukedom back at the end without having to fight for it. Duke Frederick converts to religion offstage and hands it over. That resolution says something about the play's attitude to power: the virtuous character does not need to win, he just needs to wait. Whether that is reassuring or convenient depends on how you look at it.
Key Scenes
Famous Quotes
“Sweet are the uses of adversity, which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.”
Duke Senior — Act 2, Scene 1
“This wide and universal theatre presents more woeful pageants than the scene wherein we play in.”
Duke Senior — Act 2, Scene 7
Themes
Other Characters in As You Like It
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