Touchstone (As You Like It)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Touchstone is a fictional character in Shakespeare's play As You Like It.
Role in the play
Touchstone is the court jester of Duke Frederick the usurper's court. Throughout the play he comments on the other characters and thus contributes to a better understanding of the play. Touchstone falls in love with a dull-witted goat girl named Audrey. William, an oafish country boy, makes clumsy attempts to woo her as well, but is driven off by Touchstone, who threatens to kill him "a hundred and fifty ways". Eventually Touchstone marries Audrey, but a prediction is made that the relationship will not last. Audrey does not love Touchstone in the real sense of the feeling but only to become a courtly lady. She is a rustic countrywoman. Touchstone is not a self-centered and selfish man, as is shown when he is willing to follow Celia into the forest of Arden for the simple reason as to be a comfort on the journey and as a security too.
Touchstone is thought to be a witty or clever fool, although Rosalind and Celia jokingly say that he is a "natural" fool ("Fortune makes Nature's natural the cutter-off of Nature's wit" and "hath sent this natural for our whetstone").
