Thomas Lodge's Rosalynde
Shakespeare followed Lodge extensively, but made some interesting changes:
- Lodge carefully provides a motive in the favoritism of the father, John of Bordeaux, who made Rosader his "darling."
- Later in the scene Rosader is more violent than Orlando, taking up a rake and laying about with it; it is potentially an exciting and dramatic scene, but evidently Shakespeare wanted to make Orlando less violently heroic.
- The addition of Adam to Shakespeare's scene too makes a difference; the older man's presence makes Oliver's actions seem far more arbitrary (is Adam something of a choric commentator?).
- In one way Shakespeare has increased tension in the play by making Duke Frederick an enemy of Orlando's father; where in Lodge the king offers praise to Rosader as one might expect, Duke Frederick rejects Orlando (1. 2. 214-20).
- Later in Rosalynde Rosader/Orlando kills some of his brother's men.
- There is an incident where thieves threaten Rosalynde and Alinda; they are rescued by a Saladyne/Oliver now repentant because he had been imprisoned by the usurping king, and thus a more plausible reason is given for the subsequent love of Alinda and Saladyne than the simple pastoral love at first sight in Shakespeare
- Lodge provides a battle between the usurping king and lords loyal to Gerismond, the rightful king.
- Shakespeare also changed Lodge by adding several characters. Touchstone, his country wench Audrey, and her previous hopeful, William (there seems to have been a kind of snowball effect here); and the remarkable oddity of the play, Jacques.
- Perhaps the most profound change Shakespeare made in his use of Lodge was not to alter the plot but to reorganize it. Lodge tells his three love stories in effect one after the other, Shakespeare develops the various love plots simultaneously, such that they comment, often ironically, on each other.
