as you like it by w.shakespeare

As You Like

ItWilliam Shakespeare

As You Like It

• a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600.

• It remains a favorite among audiences and has been adapted for radio, film, and musical theatre.

Basic Info:

As You Like It

• It was most likely written around 1598–1600, during the last years of Elizabeth’s reign.

• It was first printed in the collected edition of Shakespeare's plays, known as the First Folio, during 1623.

Basic Info:

TRIVIA!

• William Shakespeare NEVER published any of his plays and therefore none of the original manuscripts have survived. Eighteen unauthorized versions of his plays were, however, published during his lifetime in quarto editions by unscrupulous publishers (there were no copyright laws protecting Shakespeare and his works during the Elizabethan era). A collection of his works did not appear until 1623 ( a full seven years after Shakespeare's death on April 23, 1616) when two of his fellow actors, John Hemminges and Henry Condell, posthumously recorded his work and published 36 of William’s plays in the First Folio.

Date First Performed

• It is believed that As You Like It was first performed between 1599 and 1600. In the Elizabethan Era there was a huge demand for new entertainment and As You Like It would have been produced immediately following the completion of the play.

Number of Words in As You Like It

• The number of words in the script, according to the Complete Public Domain Text is 22,960.

Famous Quotations

"All the world 's a stage, and all the

men and women merely

players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his

time plays many parts."

(Act II, Scene VII)

"True is it that we have seen better

days".

(Act II, Scene VII).

"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise

man knows himself to be a fool".

(Act V, Scene II)

"Can one desire too much

of a good thing?”

(Act IV, Scene I)

Elements

Summary of the Story

• As You Like It is considered by many to be one of Shakespeare's greatest comedies, and the heroine, Rosalind, is praised as one of his most inspiring characters and has more lines than any of Shakespeare's female characters. Rosalind, the daughter of a banished duke falls in love with Orlando the disinherited son of one of the duke's friends. When she is banished from the court by her usurping uncle, Duke Frederick , Rosalind switches genders and as Ganymede travels with her loyal cousin Celia and the jester Touchstone to the Forest of Arden, where her father and his friends live in exile.

Summary of the Story

• Observations on life and love follow (including love, aging, the natural world, and death) friends are made, and families are reunited. By the play's end Ganymede, once again Rosalind, marries her Orlando. Two other sets of lovers are also wed, one of them Celia and Orlando's mean older brother Oliver . As Oliver becomes a gentler, kinder young man so the Duke conveniently changes his ways and turns to religion and so that the exiled Duke, father of Rosalind, can rule once again.

The Setting for As You Like Itc

• The setting for As You Like It is unclear – either Arden in England or Ardennes in Belgium, France.

MAIN Characters:

Rosalind Orlando

Characters

Rosalind - The daughter of Duke Senior. Rosalind, considered one of Shakespeare’s most delightful heroines, is independent minded, strong-willed, good-hearted, and terribly clever. Rather than slink off into defeated exile, Rosalind resourcefully uses her trip to the Forest of Ardenne as an opportunity to take control of her own destiny. When she disguises herself as Ganymede—a handsome young man—and offers herself as a tutor.

Characters

Orlando - The youngest son of Sir Rowland de Bois and younger brother of Oliver. Orlando is an attractive young man who has languished without a gentleman’s education or training. Orlando cares for the aging Adam in the Forest of Ardenne and later risks his life to save Oliver from a hungry lioness, proving himself a proper gentleman. He is the most obvious romantic match for Rosalind.

Characters

Duke Senior - The father of Rosalind and the rightful ruler of the dukedom in which the play is set. Having been banished by his usurping brother, Frederick, Duke Senior now lives in exile in the Forest of Ardenne with a number of loyal men, including Lord Amiens and Jaques. Content in the forest, where he claims to learn as much from stones and brooks as he would in a church or library.

Characters

Celia - The daughter of Duke Frederick and Rosalind’s dearest friend. Celia’s devotion to Rosalind is unmatched, as evidenced by her decision to follow her cousin into exile. To make the trip, Celia assumes the disguise of a simple shepherdess and calls herself Aliena. As elucidated by her extreme love of Rosalind and her immediate devotion to Oliver, whom she marries at the end of the play.

Characters

Duke Frederick - The brother of Duke Senior and usurper of his throne. Duke Frederick’s cruel nature and volatile temper are displayed when he banishes his niece, Rosalind, from court without reason. That Celia, his own daughter, cannot mitigate his unfounded anger demonstrates the intensity of the duke’s hatefulness.

Themes

• Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Delights of Love• As You Like It spoofs many of the conventions of poetry and literature dealing with love, such as the idea that love is a disease that brings suffering and torment to the lover, or the assumption that the male lover is the slave or servant of his mistress. These ideas are central features of the courtly love tradition, which greatly influenced European literature for hundreds of years before Shakespeare’s time.

Themes

The Malleability of the Human Experience• Jaques philosophizes on the stages of human life: man passes from infancy into boyhood; becomes a lover, a soldier, and a wise civic leader; and then, year by year, becomes a bit more foolish until he is returned to his “second childishness and mere oblivion”

Themes

Urban Life Versus Rural Life• Pastoral literature thrives on the contrast between life in the city and life in the country. Often, it suggests that the oppressions of the city can be remedied by a trip into the country’s therapeutic woods and fields, and that a person’s sense of balance and rightness can be restored by conversations with uncorrupted shepherds and shepherdesses. This type of restoration, in turn, enables one to return to the city a better person, capable of making the most of urban life.

Symbols

• Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

Orlando’s Poems

• The poems that Orlando nails to the trees of Ardenne are a testament to his love for Rosalind.

Symbols

The Slain Deer

• Jaques and other lords in Duke Senior’s party kill a deer. Jaques proposes to “set the deer’s horns upon [the hunter’s] head for a branch of victory”. To an Elizabethan audience, however, the slain deer would have signaled more than just an accomplished archer.

Symbols

Ganymede

• Rosalind’s choice of alternative identities is significant. Ganymede is a standard symbol of homosexual love.

ApplyingCritical

Approaches

Biographical Criticism

William Shakespeare


•He is born on 23 April 1564.•And died on 23 April 1616.•He was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.•He is often called England's National Poet.

Formalist Criticism

The TITLE-it can be said that Shakespeare uses this title in a spirit of playfulness. -the title suggests not merely the theme of the play but also the attitude towards the play. -The title was particularly suited to the do-as-you please atmosphere of the Forest of Arden, a place where different kinds of persons go about happily seeking their own different kinds of satisfaction.

Formalist Criticism

The PLOT- As You Like It is based on traditional pastoral romance, a very popular literary form in the Renaissance. -The pastoral celebrated the virtues of a simple life lived close to nature, and idealized romantic love.-Shakespeare tries to please his audiences with their likes in certain make up of the plot.

Formalist Criticism

William Shakespeare's Main Source• All characters and plot are purely

fictitious but information was drawn from Rosalynde by Thomas Lodge (1557-1625)

Formalist Criticism

Compared to Other Text

Formalist Criticism

Compared to Other Text -Alike the dreamland in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Arden in As You Like It is saturated by love and love pairs. -Both plays employ the use of disguises for the initial purpose of deceit.

Formalist Criticism

The CONTEXT

-literary luminaries such as Ben Jonson hailed his work as timeless and universal.

Reader-Response Criticism

•Scholars have long disagreed about the merits of the play. Critics from Samuel Johnson and George Bernard Shaw have complained that As You Like It is lacking in the high artistry of which Shakespeare was capable. •Tolstoy objected to the immorality of the characters.


•Other critics have found great literary value in the work. •Harold Bloom has written that Rosalind is among Shakespeare's greatest and most fully realized female characters.•The elaborate gender reversals in the story are of particular interest to modern critics interested in gender studies.


•“As You Like It is a light-hearted comedy which appeals to the readers at all stages and all in lighter moods. It pleases some by its idyllic romance, others by its optimistic philosophy of simple goodness, and yet others by its cynical ironies. Indeed you can take this as you like it.”

Sociological Criticism-can be related to New Historicism

•The era when Shakespeare was born.•Before the age of Elizabethan drama, plays were mainly based on religious themes. However, people demanded, Elizabethan dramas were based on secular issues.

Elizabethan Era

Sociological Criticism

Elizabethan Drama refers to the plays which were produced during the reign of queen Elizabeth in England.•The opening of several good sized play houses was responsible for this increased patronage . the largest and most famous of which was the Globe Theatre (1599), home to many of Shakespeare's work.•The most popular types of Elizabethan plays were histories of England’s rulers..


Rosalind is one of the most powerful of all the women characters encountered in any of the Shakespearian comedies. In terms of her personality and wit, she seems to be unmatched. One of the reasons she is able to express herself so fully is that she remains disguised as a male for a long portion of “As You Like It“.

Reported By:

Kimberly Dela Cruz

as you like it by w.shakespeare

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