SOURCE: "As You Like It: 'Subjective', Objective', and 'Natural' Time," in Shakespeare and the Nature of Time: Moral and Philosophical Themes in Some Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1971, pp. 28-44.

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 viewpoints are reconciled through marriage at the end of the play.

As You Like It opens with two characters who, in terms of the hierarchy of social power, are weak and inferior: Orlando, the younger brother, and Adam, the old man. One is denied his place in society; the other is past his usefulness. Orlando tellingly distinguishes between the 'gentle condition of blood' and the 'courtesy of nations';¹ between what is owed him as a member of society, and what is due to his status...