Like many modern television situation comedies, the humor of As You Like It depends upon the audience's suspension of disbelief. We are asked, for example, to believe that Duke Senior does not recognize his own daughter in disguise. Similarly, although Orlando does not know Rosalind all that well, we would still expect that he would be able, eventually, to recognize some quality in Ganymede that would remind him of Rosalind. And also like modern sitcoms, Shakespeare's comedy also resolves all problems neatly and quickly at the end. The conversions of the early villains, Duke Frederick and Oliver, are perhaps too neat and too quick to be believable. Similarly, the marriage combinations Oliver and Celia; Phebe and Silvius; and Touchstone and Audreyseem to defy rationality. Beyond the confines of the play, we might imagine that the marriages.....
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