As You Like It

As You Like It, five-act comedy by William Shakespeare, written and performed about 1598–1600 and first published in the First Folio of 1623. Shakespeare based the play on Rosalynde (1590), a prose romance by Thomas Lodge.

The play has two principal settings: the court that Frederick has usurped from his brother, the rightful duke (known as Duke Senior), and the Forest of Arden, where the Duke and his followers (including the disgruntled Jaques) are living in exile. Rosalind, the Duke’s daughter, who is still at court, falls in love with Orlando, who has been denied by his older brother Oliver the education and upbringing that should have been Orlando’s right as a gentleman. To escape Oliver’s murderous hatred, Orlando flees to the Forest of Arden with his faithful old servant Adam. Soon Rosalind is banished too, merely for being the daughter of the out-of-favour Duke Senior. She flees to Arden accompanied by her cousin Celia and the jester Touchstone. Disguised as a young man named Ganymede, Rosalind encounters Orlando, lovesick for his Rosalind, and promises to cure him of his lovesickness by pretending to be that very Rosalind, so that Orlando will learn something of what women are really like. Oliver appears in the forest intending to kill Orlando, but, when Orlando saves his brother from a hungry lioness and a snake, Oliver experiences deep remorse. He then falls in love with Celia. Revelation of the girls’ true identities precipitates a group wedding ceremony. When word arrives that Frederick has repented, the Duke’s exile is at an end. A group of forest inhabitants—William, Audrey, Silvius, and Phoebe—and the courtier Le Beau further round out the cast of characters, and an abundance of song complements the play’s amorous theme and idyllic setting. The play is considered to be one of Shakespeare’s “great” or “middle” comedies.

For a discussion of this play within the context of Shakespeare’s entire corpus, see William Shakespeare: Shakespeare’s plays and poems.