SOURCE: "As You Like It and the Idea of Play," in Critical Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 3, Autumn, 1971, pp. 234-45.

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 natural propensity for play."]

Now in myth and ritual the great instinctive forces of civilized life have their origin: law and order, commerce and profit, craft and art, poetry, wisdom, and science. All are rooted in the primeval soil of play.

(J. Huizinga, Homo Ludens, 1949)

Here nowe I recke not much, to passe over untouched, how no maner acte, or noble deede was ever attempted, nor any arte or science invented, other, than of whiche I might fully be holden first author.

(Erasmus, The Praise of Folie, translated by Sir Thomas Chaloner 1549)

There is only enough story...