As You Like It Summary
William Shakespeare

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As You Like It Summary & Study Guide
4 Student Essay
76 Literature Criticism
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30 As You Like It Lessons
20 Activities
180 Multiple Choice Questions
60 Short Essay Questions
20 Essay Questions
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As You Like It Summary

Act I:

Orlando, who has been denied his inheritance and education by his brother Oliver, fights with him over his birthright. Envious of Orlando's virtues, Oliver schemes to have Charles the wrestler murder Orlando in an upcoming match. Rosalind and Celia attend the bout at Duke Frederick's court and watch Orlando defeat Charles. Rosalind gives him a necklace, and he falls in love with her. Later, Le Beau warns Orlando that the duke is threatened by his presence, and he advises the youth to flee the court. Meanwhile, Rosalind admits to Celia that she loves Orlando, but her happiness is interrupted when the duke banishes her.

She decides to journey to Arden forest disguised as a courtier named Ganymede, accompanied by Celia and Touchstone.

Act II:

Upon reaching Arden, Rosalind, Celia, and Touchstone overhear Silvius professing his love of Phebe to Corin. Elsewhere, Orlando and Adam have also reached the forest in... View more of the As You Like It Summary

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The As You Like It Study Pack contains about 2,063 pages of study material in 86 products, including:

As You Like It Study Guide

Introduction

Plot Synopsis

Chapter Summaries

FREE Quiz

Characters

Conclusion

Overviews

Sources For Further Study

William Shakespeare Biography (5)

William Shakespeare

35,385 words, approx. 118 pages

Biography Essay"He was not of an age, but for all time." So wrote Ben Jonson in his dedicatory verses to the memory of William Shakespeare in 1623, and so we continue to affirm today. No other writer,... Read more

William Shakespeare

3,100 words, approx. 11 pages

The English playwright, poet, and actor William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is generally acknowledged to be the greatest of English writers and one of the most extraordinary creators in human history.The ... Read more

William Shakespeare

2,568 words, approx. 9 pages

Considered by critics, scholars, and the theater-going public the most important dramatist in the history of English literature, William Shakespeare occupies a unique position in the pantheon of great... Read more

William Shakespeare

30,474 words, approx. 102 pages

"He was not of an age, but for all time." So wrote Ben Jonson in his dedicatory verses to the memory of William Shakespeare in 1623, and so we continue to affirm today. No other writer, in English or ... Read more

William Shakespeare

10,254 words, approx. 35 pages

William Shakespeare's reputation is based primarily on his plays. With the partial exception of the Sonnets (1609), quarried since the early nineteenth century for autobiographical secrets allegedly ... Read more

Essays & Analysis (80)

Critical Essay by D. J. Palmer

5,174 words, approx. 18 pages

In the following essay, Palmer analyzes the nature and purpose of play in As You Like It, and contends that "[the heart of the comedy might be described as a demonstration of man's natur... Read more

Critical Essay by Harry Morris

3,825 words, approx. 13 pages

In the following essay, Morris observes the "presence of death" and other "dark ingredients" in As You Like It, and examines Shakespeares treatment of time in the play. Som... Read more

Critical Essay by Rawdon Wilson

4,890 words, approx. 17 pages

In the following essay, Wilson argues that the journey from Duke Frederick's court to the Forest of Arden, represented by a the shift from objective to subjective time, signifies a "shif... Read more

Critical Essay by Joseph Alulis

10,730 words, approx. 36 pages

In the essay below, originally presented at the University of Chicago in 1994, Alulis argues that As You Like It is about the relation between differing social states—one of convention, represe... Read more

David Frail

9,438 words, approx. 32 pages

In the essay below, Frail asserts that Touchstone mirrors the "kaleidoscopic" nature of As You Like It, blurring the lines between wisdom and folly so that we may free our minds long eno... Read more

Critical Essay by Guy Butler

4,188 words, approx. 14 pages

In the following excerpt, Butler describes the influence that rival jesters Robert Armin and John Stone (circa 1600) had on Touchstone's evolution into a "new-style" fool My two j... Read more

Critical Essay by Bente A. Videbaek

4,702 words, approx. 16 pages

In the essay below, Videbœk maintains that Touchstone's function is to serve "the interests of the audience," and thus mirrors, mocks, and exposes the folly of those he enc... Read more

Philip Traci

5,557 words, approx. 19 pages

In the essay below, Traci discusses the intimations of homosexuality between Orlando and the Ganymede/boy actor found in the text of As You Like It. The diversity of sexual preference in As You Like I... Read more

Critical Essay by John Powell Ward

6,736 words, approx. 23 pages

In the following essay, Ward explores the androgenous dimensions of Rosalind and suggests that her sexual ambiguity heightens sexual intrigue and contributes to the play's sense of unity. Disgu... Read more

Critical Essay by Mario DiGangi

11,540 words, approx. 39 pages

In the essay below, DiGangi analyzes homoeroticism in As You Like It as it relates to the early modern family and the mythological narrative that recounts Jupiter's desire for his page Ganymede... Read more

Frederick Turner

6,157 words, approx. 21 pages

In the essay below, Turner describes the attitudes of Jaques, Touchstone, and Rosalind and Orlando toward time—historical, natural, and personal, respectively—and asserts that all three ... Read more

Critical Essay by Susan Carlson

9,988 words, approx. 34 pages

In the following essay, Carlson refutes earlier critics who claim that As You Like It reflects sexual equality. She argues that patriarchal norms persist, especially in the play's ending. At th... Read more

Critical Essay by Cynthia Marshall

9,663 words, approx. 33 pages

In the following essay, Marshall explores the way in which wrestling is used as a metaphor for socially constructed emotion. As You Like It, long considered among the happiest and most refined of Shak... Read more

Critical Essay by Susanne L. Wofford

9,887 words, approx. 33 pages

In the following essay, Wofford considers the role of language in establishing meanings about gender in As You Like It. More than almost any other of Shakespeare's comedies, As You Like It is t... Read more

Critical Essay by Penny Gay

6,662 words, approx. 23 pages

In the following essay, Gay analyzes the meaning of gender within the context of Elizabethan theater. Few critical issues in Shakespearean comedy have been discussed more energetically in the last twe... Read more

Critical Essay by Robert Schwartz

3,741 words, approx. 13 pages

In the following essay, Schwartz argues that Shakespeare's emphasis on Familist ideology, a sixteenth-century libertine movement, accounts for the variations between As You Like It and Lodge&#x... Read more

Critical Essay by Gene Fendt

5,790 words, approx. 20 pages

In the following essay, Fendt explores the cathartic effects of As You Like It on the audience, juxtaposing the views of the characters Jaques and Touchstone. Happiness does not lie in amusement; inde... Read more

Critical Essay by Kay Stanton

4,598 words, approx. 16 pages

In the following essay, Stanton argues that many of As You Like It's characters disguise their true feelings and nature, a fact which clarifies many of the play's nuances. The physical d... Read more

Critical Essay by Anne Herrmann

10,320 words, approx. 35 pages

In the following essay, Herrmann examines the role of transvestism in As You Like It, Bertolt Brecht's The Good Woman of Setzuan, and Cloud Nine by Caryl Churchill. The woman shall not wear tha... Read more

Critical Essay by P. H. Parry

7,567 words, approx. 26 pages

In the following essay, Parry discusses Shakespeare's self-conscious representation of the nature of theater and the role of audience in As You Like It. Theatre is based upon twinned assumption... Read more

Critical Essay by A. Stuart Daley

11,196 words, approx. 38 pages

In the following essay, Daley questions the nature of the hunt in As You Like It, stating that it indicates the desperation of Duke Senior, and that it functions on an allegorical level as well. Dr. S... Read more

Critical Essay by Alan Brissenden

9,175 words, approx. 31 pages

In the following excerpt, Brissenden surveys theme and character in As You Like It, concentrating on motifs of love, transformation, and doubling. Love Love is associated with Rosalind from the beginn... Read more

Critical Review by Russell Jackson

503 words, approx. 2 pages

In the following excerpted review of the 2000 Shakespeare season at Stratford-upon-Avon, Jackson explains that Greg Doran's production of As You Like It was dominated by setting, design, and co... Read more

Critical Essay by Maura Slattery Kuhn

5,012 words, approx. 17 pages

In the following essay, Kuhn observes the suppositional and conditional quality of As You Like It, reflected in the prevalence of “ifs” in the language of the play. I Four arresting prob... Read more

Critical Essay by Mark Bracher

7,267 words, approx. 25 pages

In the following essay, Bracher assesses the thematic structure of As You Like It in terms of two opposing conceptions of identity—one exclusive and expressed via satire, the other inclusive an... Read more

Critical Essay by A. Stuart Daley

9,669 words, approx. 33 pages

In the following essay, Daley argues against the critical opinion that Shakespeare presented a thematic “antithesis between court and country” in As You Like It. There is a well-establis... Read more

Critical Essay by Dale G. Priest

5,953 words, approx. 20 pages

In the following essay, Priest concentrates on the three “manipulators” of As You Like It—Jaques, Touchstone, and Rosalind—the last of whom emerges as the most skilled and ... Read more

Critical Essay by Paul J. Willis

4,966 words, approx. 17 pages

In the following essay, Willis surveys the widely varying interpretations of nature expressed by the characters of As You Like It, finding these interpretations parody, but ultimately preserve, the Ch... Read more

Critical Essay by Maurice Hunt

9,807 words, approx. 33 pages

In the following essay, Hunt describes Shakespeare's references to classical and Christian notions of time in As You Like It as they suggest the possibility of a renewed Golden Age or the provi... Read more

Critical Essay by Camille Wells Slights

9,721 words, approx. 33 pages

In the following essay, Slights evaluates As You Like It as a social drama essentially concerned with the attempts of its principal characters to renew the disrupted social order. ‘one man in h... Read more

Critical Essay by Marta Powell Harley

2,436 words, approx. 9 pages

In the following essay, Powell considers the relationship between animal allusions and Rosalind's shifting sexual identity in As You Like It. The presentation of the character Rosalind in Shake... Read more

Critical Essay by Marjorie Garber

5,958 words, approx. 20 pages

In the following essay, Garber contends that Rosalind maintains her disguise as Ganymede throughout most of As You Like It so that she can more easily educate Orlando about love. When Rosalind learns ... Read more

Critical Essay by Arthur Stuart Daley

7,905 words, approx. 27 pages

In the following essay, Daley views Duke Frederick of As You Like It as an example of the stock Elizabethan tyrant character, and assesses his thematic purpose in the drama as it is principally expres... Read more

Critical Essay by Michael Gelven

4,750 words, approx. 16 pages

In the following essay, Gelven sees the minor character Silvius as an embodiment of true love in As You Like It, who serves as a foil to the deceitful lovers of Shakespeare's romantic comedy. H... Read more

Critical Review by Robert Brustein

696 words, approx. 3 pages

In the following review of Barry Edelstein's 1999 production of As You Like It at the Williamstown Theatre, Brustein focuses on the success of acclaimed film actress Gwyneth Paltrow in the role... Read more

Critical Review by Patrick Carnegy

879 words, approx. 3 pages

In the following review of Gregory Doran's 2000 Royal Shakespeare Company staging of As You Like It, Carnegy notes that the production's lavish costumes generally outdid the lackluster p... Read more

Critical Essay by Amelia Marriette

6,266 words, approx. 21 pages

In the following essay, Marriette appraises Christine Edzard's 1992 anti-utopian, anti-pastoral, urban, and contemporary film adaptation of As You Like It, admiring its provocative interpretati... Read more

Critical Essay by Thomas McFarland

7,593 words, approx. 26 pages

In the following essay, originally published in 1972, McFarland examines the tragic, cynical, and unpastoral elements in the otherwise comic As You Like It. To approach As You Like It immediately afte... Read more

Critical Essay by Susan Baker

6,079 words, approx. 21 pages

In the following essay, Baker examines the relationship between ritual and drama in As You Like It, and observes that Shakespeare's depiction of the characters' psychological and symboli... Read more

Critical Essay by A. Stuart Daley

8,721 words, approx. 30 pages

In the following essay, Daley emphasizes political issues in As You Like It, analyzing its dramatization of Tudor commonwealth ideology, in which the virtues of reason and temperance combine to regene... Read more

Critical Essay by John R. Ford

4,993 words, approx. 17 pages

In the following essay, Ford examines themes of estrangement and doubling as part of the process of attaining self-knowledge and personal metamorphosis in As You Like It. The forest of Arden in As You... Read more

Critical Essay by Martha Ronk

10,576 words, approx. 36 pages

In the following essay, Ronk considers the relationship between the verbal and visual in As You Like It, evaluating the thematic and structural significance of visual metaphor, emblem, and theatricali... Read more

Critical Essay by Thomas Kelly

6,110 words, approx. 21 pages

In the following essay, Kelly argues that unlike most of Shakespeare's romantic heroes, As You Like It's Orlando possesses considerable self-control and self-awareness. The romantic hero... Read more

Critical Essay by Edward I. Berry

6,088 words, approx. 21 pages

In the following essay, Berry compares Shakespeare's Rosalind in As You Like It with the title figure of Thomas Lodge's Rosalynde, observing that Shakespeare instilled his Rosalind with ... Read more

Critical Review by Lois Potter

698 words, approx. 3 pages

In the following review of the 1999 Globe Theatre staging of As You Like It directed by Lucy Bailey, Potter praises Anastasia Hille's unconventional Rosalind, but contends that the production a... Read more

Critical Review by Ben Brantley

1,313 words, approx. 5 pages

In the following review of director Barry Edelstein's 1999 production of As You Like It at the Williamstown Theater Festival, Brantley highlights the centrality of film star Gwyneth Paltrow�... Read more

Critical Review by Charles Isherwood

941 words, approx. 4 pages

In the following review of the 1999 staging of As You Like It at the Williamstown Theater Festival, Isherwood finds director Barry Edelstein's “self-consciously artificial” interp... Read more

Critical Review by D. J. R. Bruckner

723 words, approx. 3 pages

In the following review of director Ray Virta's 1999 production of As You Like It with the Kings County Shakespeare Company, Bruckner wholeheartedly applauds the ensemble cast and Virta'... Read more

Critical Review by D. J. R. Bruckner

849 words, approx. 3 pages

In the following review of an abridged, six-person cast production of As You Like It directed by Erica Schmidt in 2000, Bruckner views this comedic and acrobatic staging of the play as “a good-... Read more

Critical Review by Joel Henning

809 words, approx. 3 pages

In the following review, Henning praises director David H. Bell's 2001 Chicago Shakespeare Theater staging of As You Like It, particularly its czarist setting and nearly impeccable individual p... Read more

Critical Essay by Ruth Nevo

6,920 words, approx. 24 pages

In the following essay, Nevo argues that in As You Like It Shakespeare transformed the genre of comedy into a sophisticated art form in which the characters act improvisationally rather than adhering ... Read more

Critical Review by Patrick Carnegy

791 words, approx. 3 pages

In the following review, Carnegy maintains that Gregory Thompson's emphasis on the dark, melancholic aspects of As You Like It in his Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) production would have been ... Read more

Critical Review by Katherine Duncan-Jones

739 words, approx. 3 pages

In the following review, Duncan-Jones offers a mixed assessment of Gregory Thompson's Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) staging of As You Like It, praising the principal actors' performanc... Read more

Critical Review by Alastair Macaulay

389 words, approx. 2 pages

In the following review, Macaulay commends Peter Hall's presentation of As You Like It at the Theatre Royal, Bath, for its refreshing straightforwardness. It's improbable but true that P... Read more

Critical Essay by Michael Shapiro

11,439 words, approx. 39 pages

In the following essay, Shapiro analyzes the device of the cross-gender disguise in Shakespeare's As You Like It, as well as in the plays of some of Shakespeare's contemporaries. Even mo... Read more

Critical Essay by Nathaniel Strout

8,066 words, approx. 27 pages

In the following essay, Strout maintains that in As You Like It Shakespeare advocated the concept of mutuality through his characters' expressions of love and through the choices that they make... Read more

Critical Essay by Peter Milward

4,726 words, approx. 16 pages

In the following essay, Milward posits that the locale of Arden may represent Shakespeare's dramatic invention of a pro-Catholic realm free from the religious persecution of the Tudor dynasty. ... Read more

Critical Essay by Linda Woodbridge

10,165 words, approx. 34 pages

In the following essay, Woodbridge attempts to rescue the genre of pastoralism from critical and cultural malignity, demonstrating how it serves as a viable romantic antithesis to the intrigue and man... Read more

Critical Essay by Robert B. Bennett

8,931 words, approx. 30 pages

In the following essay, Bennett assesses Shakespeare's rationale for including Jaques—a cynical malcontent—in the pastoral realm of Arden, concluding that Jaques provides a satiri... Read more

Critical Essay by Clare R. Kinney

11,366 words, approx. 38 pages

In the following essay, Kinney surveys the character of Rosalind from its inception in Edmund Spenser's Shepheardes Calender (1579), to Thomas Lodge's Rosalynde (1590), and finally to Sh... Read more

Critical Essay by Sharon Hamilton

4,214 words, approx. 15 pages

In the following excerpt, Hamilton discusses Rosalind in terms of her role as the authority figure who orchestrates much of the action in As You Like It. Rosalind, like her sister heroines, is made to... Read more

Critical Review by Ben Brantley

1,308 words, approx. 5 pages

In the following review, Brantley praises Gwyneth Paltrow's performance as Rosalind in the Williamstown Theater Festival staging of As You Like It, but concludes that director Barry Edelstein&#... Read more

Critical Review by Brendan Lemon

655 words, approx. 3 pages

In the following review, Lemon provides a favorable evaluation of Barry Edelstein's Williamstown Theater Festival rendering of As You Like It, singling out its jazzy, improvisational tone and G... Read more

Critical Review by Alastair Macaulay

632 words, approx. 3 pages

In the following review, Macaulay dismisses Gregory Doran's Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) production of As You Like It as tedious, censuring Doran's uninspired direction, numerous shal... Read more

Critical Review by Ian Shuttleworth

493 words, approx. 2 pages

In the following review, Shuttleworth commends Gregory Doran's Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) revival of As You Like It at London's Pit theater, noting that it displayed a vigor that wa... Read more

Critical Essay by Richard Wilson

10,874 words, approx. 37 pages

In the following essay, Wilson discusses enclosure in the 1590s and its reflection in Shakespeare's As You Like It, suggesting that neither enclosure itself nor literature dealing with it were ... Read more

Critical Essay by Mark Taylor

9,156 words, approx. 31 pages

In the following excerpt, Taylor focuses on the irregular control that fathers exert on their daughters in many of Shakespeare's works. The plot of As You Like It could be described as the simu... Read more

Critical Essay by Barbara J. Bono

8,191 words, approx. 28 pages

In the following essay, Bono offers a feminist analysis of As You Like It and contends that the play "represent(s) both the masculine struggle for identity and a female 'double-voiced&#x... Read more

Critical Essay by Jan Kott

8,864 words, approx. 30 pages

In the following essay, Kott probes the structural, thematic, and historical components of Rosalind's ambiguous gender in As You Like It. On the Elizabethan stage the roles of young girls and e... Read more

Critical Essay by Valerie Traub

12,335 words, approx. 42 pages

In the following essay, Traub compares the representation of homoerotic desire in As You Like It and Twelfth Night, proposing that the early modern theatrical practice of boy actors playing female rol... Read more

Critical Essay by Gene Fendt

5,738 words, approx. 20 pages

In the following essay, Fendt examines the comic catharsis in As You Like It, viewing the play's cultural and moral components. Happiness does not lie in amusement; indeed it would be strange &... Read more

Critical Essay by Richard Knowles

8,542 words, approx. 29 pages

In the following essay, Knowles highlights a number of mythological allusions in As You Like It, specifically studying references to the classical hero Hercules and the Christian mythology associated ... Read more

Critical Essay by Susan Baker

6,088 words, approx. 21 pages

In the following essay, Baker examines the rites of passage that the characters undergo in As You Like It and suggests that Shakespeare intended the theatrical experience of life in the Forest of Arde... Read more

The Political Conscious of Shakespeare's As You Like It

9,058 words, approx. 31 pages

Andrew Barnaby, University of Vermont the purpose of playing . . . [is] to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature: to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body ... Read more

Critical Essay by Rawdon Wilson

4,875 words, approx. 17 pages

In the following essay, Wilson identifies two concepts of time in As You Like It: one that views time as an objective process of measuring change and another that perceives time as relative and subjec... Read more

Critical Essay by Jay L. Halio

3,790 words, approx. 13 pages

In the following essay, Halio evaluates the juxtaposition of time-consciousness in the world of court and city versus the timelessness in the Forest of Arden in As You Like It. In As You Like It Shake... Read more

Transgressing Prescribed Gender Roles in Shakespeare

1,879 words, approx. 7 pages

Transgressing prescribed gender roles in As You Like It Shakespeare's As You Like It is both a gentle, pastoral comedy and a complicated, dark debate on the relationship between love, power and gende... Read more

How Does Shakespeare Portray the Forest of Arden Compared to the Court in as You Like It?

2,548 words, approx. 9 pages

In `As You Like It' Shakespeare creates an imaginary utopia called `The Forest of Arden', in which characters can escape from the harsh lifestyle of the court and become their `true selves'. `As Yo... Read more

As You Like It - A Critical Analysis of Act 1

601 words, approx. 3 pages

The Act 1 of AS YOU LIKE IT prepares the audience and the reader for the rest of the play. It is most similar to the prologue of the modern play where an insight to the rest of the play is provided. I... Read more

The Extended Metaphor Soliloquy in "As You Like It"

667 words, approx. 3 pages

The primary concern that William Shakespeare reflects throughout the "All the world's a stage" soliloquy in "As You Like It" relates to the way that people think about you and their judgements on you ... Read more

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Who wrote As You Like It?

-- William Shakespeare is the author of As You Like It. read more

explaination of the paraphrase-act 2 scene 7,lines=71-88

-- The explaination is- Why is that when any one denounces pride,he does not blame any private individu... read more

What is the relevance and significance of the title ' AS YOU LIKE IT ' ?

-- The play is titled so because each and every character in the play gets as per his liking. eg.Orland... read more

-- It is thought that Shakespeare borrowed the title from the Epistle Directorie to the Gentlemen Reade... read more

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William Shakespeare