Jaques seems to be saying that reputation for valor is fleeting. It is something that looks impressive like a large bubble, but it can vanish in an instant like a bursting bubble. Shakespeare expresses a very similar notion in another play, Troilus and Cressida. In that play Achilles has refused to fight because he feels insulted by Agamemnon. Ulysses is trying to persuade Achilles to engage in battle again because he is such a great warrior and so badly needed by the Greeks. Ulysses works on Achilles' pride by getting the other leaders to ignore him and to pretend to be honoring Ajax as their great hero. Ulysses tells Achilles, in effect, that what you have done in the past is quickly forgotten; you have to keep accomplishing new deeds if you want your reputation to remain bright. That is the essence of what Ulysses tells Achilles in a long speech beginning with the following lines.
Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,A great-siz'd monster of ingratitudes.Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devour'dAs fast as they are made, forgot as soonAs done. Perseverance, dear my lord,Keeps honour bright. To have done is to hangQuite out of fashion, like a rusty mailIn monumental mock'ry. Act III, Scene 3
This is what Jaques is implying when he speaks of the "bubble reputation" in As You Like It. Reputation doesn't last. Therefore, according to Jaques, it isn't worth seeking. He believes that a soldier is foolish to look for something so fragile and valueless at great risk to his own life.
Seeking the bubble reputationEven in the cannon's mouth. Act II, Scene 7
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
In "The Seven Ages of Man," why does the speaker compare "reputation" to a "bubble"?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Summarize the major research findings of "Toward an experimental ecology of human development."
Based on findings of prior research, the author, Bronfenbrenner proposes that methods for natural observation research have been applied in ...
-
One way to support this thesis is to explain how these great men changed the world. Indeed, Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) was the quintes...
-
Polysyndeton refers to using several conjunctions in a row to achieve a dramatic effect. That can be seen in this sentence about the child: ...
-
Both boys are very charismatic and use their charisma to persuade others to follow them. The key difference of course is that Ralph uses his...
-
At the most basic level, thunderstorms and blizzards are specific weather phenomena that occur most frequently within particular seasonal cl...
-
Equation of a tangent line to the graph of function f at point (x_0,y_0) is given by y=y_0+f'(x_0)(x-x_0). The first step to finding eq...
-
Population policy is any kind of government policy that is designed to somehow regulate or control the rate of population growth. It include...
-
Gulliver cooperates with the Lilliputians because he is so interested in them. He could, obviously, squash them underfoot, but he seems to b...
No comments:
Post a Comment