SOURCE: Halio, Jay L. “‘No Clock in the Forest’: Time in As You Like It.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 2, no. 2 (Spring 1962): 197-207.

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 Shakespeare exploits timelessness as a convention of the pastoral ideal along with other conventions taken from pastoralism, but unlike his treatment, say, of Silvius and Phebe, his treatment of time is not so thoroughly satirical. Though neither will quite do, timelessness in Arden (on the whole) contrasts favorably to the time-consciousness of court and city life which Touchstone, for example, brings to the forest. In addition, timelessness links life in Arden with the ideal of an older, more gracious way of life that helps regenerate a corrupt present.

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