SOURCE: Baker, Susan. “Shakespeare and Ritual: The Example of As You Like It.” Upstart Crow 9 (1989): 9-23.

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 symbolic transformation resembles “a generic rite of passage.”

Old theories die hard. Old evolutionary theories seem not to die at all, at least in the case of those propounded by the Cambridge classicists more than a half-century ago. The emergence of drama from ritual makes a good story, whether one of civilization's triumphing over primitive irrationality or one of drama's energies arising from its origins in primitive vitality. Perhaps sheer narrative charm keeps such notions alive for critics long after most scholars have discarded them for lack of supporting evidence. A recent essay by Richard F. Hardin summarizes the persistence of evolutionary theories and other...