As You Like It

William Shakespeare's As You Like It is a pastoral comedy written in 1599 or early 1600.

Dramatis personae

• Duke Senior- in banishment
• Duke Frederick- his brother and usurper
• Amiens- attending lord
• Jaques- attending lord
• Oliver- eldest son of Sir Rowland de Boys
• Jaques de Boys- second son of Sir Rowland de Boys
• Orlando- youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys
• Le Beau- a courtier attending on Duke Frederick
• Charles- a wrestler at court
• Adam- an old servant to Sir Rowland de Boys
• Dennis- a servant to Oliver
• Touchstone- a clown
• Sir Oliver Martext- a country curate
• Corin & Silvius- shepherds
• William- a country fellow
• Hymen- god of marriage
• Rosalind- daughter of Duke Senior
• Celia- daughter of Duke Frederick
• Phebe- a shepherdess
• Audrey- a country wench

Setting

The play is set in a duchy in France, but most of the action takes place in a location called the 'Forest of Arden', which is a toponym for a forest close to Shakespeare's home town of Stratford-upon-Avon. The Oxford Shakespeare edition rationalizes this geographical discrepancy by assuming that 'Arden' is an anglicisation of the forested Ardennes region of Belgium, and alters the spelling to reflect this. Other editions keep Shakespeare's 'Arden' spelling, since it can be argued that the pastoral genre depicts a fantastical world in which geographical details are irrelevant.

Furthermore, Shakespeare's mother's name was Mary Arden, and the name of the forest may also be a pun on that.

Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In Shakespeare's version, Frederick has usurped the Duchy and exiled his older brother, Duke Senior. The Duke's daughter Rosalind has been permitted to remain at court because she is the closest friend of Frederick's only child, Celia. Orlando, a young gentleman of the kingdom who has fallen in love at first sight of Rosalind, is forced to flee his home after being persecuted by his older brother, Oliver. Frederick becomes angry and banishes Rosalind from court. Celia and Rosalind decide to flee together accompanied by the jester Touchstone, with Rosalind disguised as a young man.

Rosalind, now disguised as Ganymede ("Jove's own page"), and Celia, now disguised as Aliena (Latin for "stranger"), arrive in the Arcadian Forest of Arden — not to be confused with the real Forest of Arden, — where the exiled Duke now lives with some supporters, including "the melancholy Jaques," who is introduced to us weeping over the slaughter of a deer. "Ganymede" and "Aliena" do not immediately encounter the Duke and his companions, as they meet up with Corin, an impoverished tenant, and offer to buy his master's rude cottage.

Orlando and his servant Adam (a role possibly played by Shakespeare himself, though this story may be apocryphal [1]), meanwhile, find the Duke and his men and are soon living with them and posting simplistic love poems for Rosalind on the trees. Rosalind, also in love with Orlando, meets him as Ganymede and pretends to counsel him to cure him of being in love. Ganymede says he will take Rosalind's place and he and Orlando can act out their relationship. Meanwhile, the shepherdess Phebe, with whom Silvius is in love, has fallen in love with Ganymede, though Ganymede continually shows that he is not interested in Phoebe. The cynical Touchstone has also made an amorous advance on the dull-witted goatherd girl Audrey, and attempts to marry her before his plans are thwarted by the intrusive Jaques.

Finally, Silvius, Phoebe, Ganymede, and Orlando are brought together in an argument with each other over who will get whom. Ganymede says he will solve the problem, having Orlando promise to marry Rosalind, and Phoebe promise to marry Silvius if she cannot marry Ganymede. The next day, Rosalind reveals herself as Ganymede, and since women are not allowed to marry women, Phoebe ends up with Silvius.

Orlando sees Oliver in the forest and rescues him from a lioness, causing Oliver to repent of mistreating Orlando. Oliver meets Aliena and falls in love with her, and they agree to marry. Orlando and Rosalind, Oliver and Celia, Silvius and Phebe, and Touchstone and Audrey all are married in the final scene, after which they discover that Frederick has also repented his faults, deciding to restore his legitimate brother to the dukedom and adopt a religious life.

Source and publication history

Shakespeare drew the story for As You Like It from Thomas Lodge's prose story "Rosalynde" in the collection Euphues' Golden Legacy (1590).

As You Like It was listed in the Stationers' Register, the contemporary equivalent of copyright, in August 1600. No printed copy of it is known prior to the publication of the First Folio of Shakespeare's collected works in 1623.

Critical response

Critics from Samuel Johnson to George Bernard Shaw have complained that As You Like It is lacking in the high artistry of which Shakespeare was capable. Shaw liked to think that Shakespeare wrote the play as a mere crowdpleaser, and signalled his own middling opinion of the work by calling it As You Like It — as if the playwright did not agree. Tolstoy objected to the immorality of the characters, and Touchstone's constant clowning. Despite these high-profile naysayers, the play remains one of Shakespeare's most frequently performed comedies.

The elaborate gender reversals in the story are of particular interest to modern critics interested in gender studies. Through four acts of the play, Rosalind — who in Shakespeare's day would have been played by a boy — finds it necessary to disguise herself as a boy, whereupon the rustic Phoebe (also played by a boy), becomes infatuated with this "Ganymede", a name with homoerotic overtones. In fact, the epilogue, spoken by Rosalind to the audience, states rather explicitly that she (or at least the actor playing her) is not a woman.

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