As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare (1564-1616), written in 1599 and likely first performed that same year. Indeed, it is thought to be the inaugural show performed by Shakespeare's acting company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, at the newly built Globe Theatre. Although its literary merit has been questioned by some scholars, who point to its lack of plot, As You Like It continues to be frequently performed today and features the character of Rosalind, often regarded as one of Shakespeare's greatest heroines.
Background
As You Like It was Shakespeare's attempt at writing a pastoral play, a literary genre that was popular with Elizabethan theatre audiences in the 1580s and early '90s. Largely influenced by Sir Philip Sidney's poem Arcadia, pastorals romanticized country life, specifically that of a shepherd living off the land. A popular example of pastoral poetry is The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, one of the poems of Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), which begins:
Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields.
It is quite easy to see why pastorals appealed to the literate and theatergoing crowds of London, many of whom likely fantasized about leaving the cramped, filthy, and often dangerous conditions of city life behind. In As You Like It, Shakespeare offers his own version of a pastoral paradise with his Forest of Arden, a magical place where snakes and lions dwell, bands of merry outlaws live off the land and pass the time with song, and young people can learn to fall in love (four couples get married at the end of the play, a large number even for a Shakespearean romantic comedy). The name of Shakespeare's paradise is derived both from his source, which takes place in the French forests of Ardennes, as well as from his personal life, as his mother's name was Mary Arden.
The story itself was adapted from the popular 1590 pastoral poem Rosalynd by Thomas Lodge, which provided Shakespeare with the basic ingredients for his own play – a heroine who disguises herself as a man, and the movement of the characters from city to country. Shakespeare expands the cast, originating the melancholic Jaques and clown Touchstone, and lowers the stakes, removing the more violent resolutions of Lodge's original work. Shakespeare's title also comes from Lodge, who, in the preface to his original Rosalynd, writes: "If you like it, so; and yet I will be yours in duty, if you be mine in favor" (quoted in Shapiro, 210).
Yet even as Shakespeare leans into the pastoral, he does not fail to criticize the genre's tendency to romanticize country life and love itself. The character Orlando, for example, enters the Forest of Arden lovesick for the beautiful Rosalind; indeed, he spends his time writing dreadful love poems and pinning them to trees. A classic Petrarchan lover, Orlando, has put Rosalind on a pedestal, something our heroine knows is an unsustainable form of love. When Orlando says he would die for his love of her, Rosalind – disguised as the shepherd Ganymede – grounds him with the words: "men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love". It is for this reason that scholar James Shapiro argues that the main conflict in As You Like It does not stem from the villainous Duke Frederick, who has usurped the dukedom and banished the protagonists, but rather from Orlando's own immature attitude toward love.
For this eschewing of the traditional pastoral ideals of poets like Sidney and Marlowe – and indeed of the intense kind of love found in Shakespeare's earlier work, Romeo and Juliet – Rosalind comes across as a special type of pastoral heroine, which is why literary scholar Harold Bloom considers her amongst Shakespeare's greatest creations. "I love Falstaff and Hamlet and Cleopatra as dramatic and literary characters," Bloom writes, "but would not want to encounter them in actuality; yet falling in love with Rosalind always makes me wish that she existed in our sub-literary realm…if Rosalind cannot please us, no one in Shakespeare or elsewhere in literature ever will" (204).
Acts I & II
Prior to the opening of the play, Sir Rowland de Boys, a nobleman, has died. In his will, he has bequeathed his entire estate to his eldest son, Oliver, but has stipulated that his two younger sons, Jaques and Orlando, be provided with educations suitable to their statuses as gentlemen. Oliver has neglected this duty – although he has sent Jaques off to school, he has refused to do the same for Orlando. Oliver despises the popular, kindhearted Orlando, stating that, "my soul, yet I know not why, hates nothing more than he" (1.1.156-157). Orlando senses that his brother hates him – indeed, the play opens with him complaining to the old servant, Adam, about the way Oliver has been mistreating him. Oliver enters as Orlando is expressing his frustrations – their argument quickly turns physical, and before long, Orlando has grabbed his older brother by the throat. Although Orlando releases his brother and exits with Adam, Oliver is enraged and resolves to have him killed. He arranges for Charles, a wrestler, to break Orlando's neck during an upcoming wrestling match.
Oliver and Orlando are not the only pair of feuding brothers in the dukedom. The reigning Duke Frederick has recently usurped the throne from his elder brother, Duke Senior, who now resides in the nearby Forest of Arden with a band of exiled lords who "live like the old Robin Hood of England" (1.1.111). Duke Senior has a daughter, Rosalind, who has been allowed to stay at court because she is best friends with the new duke's daughter Celia; the two girls are inseparable and "never two ladies loved as they do" (1.1.108). At the duke's palace, Rosalind and Celia are present for the wrestling match and watch as Orlando easily overpowers his opponent, Charles. Although Duke Frederick is disappointed to learn that Orlando is the son of the late Sir Rowland – a political opponent – Rosalind finds herself smitten with the handsome young wrestler. She approaches, shyly telling him how much her father had appreciated his father, but he is unable to respond – for Orlando, too, is smitten with Rosalind and has become tongue-tied in her presence.
Shortly after the wrestling match, Duke Frederick has a change of heart and decides to banish Rosalind. She decides to go to the Forest of Arden to seek out her father, but she knows that the road will be dangerous, for "beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold" (1.3.108). For protection, she decides to disguise herself as a man, donning the outfit of a youthful shepherd named Ganymede. Celia, unable to part with her best friend, decides to join her, disguised as a shepherdess called Aliena. They round out their party by convincing Touchstone, the court jester, to accompany them, and the trio then runs into the woods. Orlando, meanwhile, learns that Oliver has tried to have him killed, and he also decides to flee to Arden. Adam, the de Boys family's aged and trusted servant, goes with him. They walk for hours, and as Adam grows steadily weaker, Orlando is forced to carry him on his back.
The scene then shifts to Duke Senior and his band of exiled lords. These include Amiens, who often breaks out into merry song, and a melancholic courtier named Jaques (not to be confused with Oliver and Orlando's brother of the same name). With little entertainment to be had, Duke Senior often amuses himself by arguing with the pessimistic Jaques and now summons him for one of their customary conversations. When Jaques arrives, he is much more jovial than usual – he has just met Touchstone in the woods and has been charmed by the encounter, believing fools to be the wisest men in the world. Later in the scene, Duke Senior is lamenting that there must be so much strife in the world when Jaques, returning to his usual melancholia, delivers his famous speech in which he states that "all the world's a stage" and "all the men and women merely players" (2.7.138-139). He goes on to explain that all men 'act' through seven ages of life, including infancy, childhood, adulthood, and finally old age, where men end their lives in a state of "second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything" (2.7.164-165).
As Duke Senior's band prepares to sit down for supper, Orlando rushes into their midst with his sword drawn and demands that they give him food – Adam has become so weak that Orlando fears he will die unless he can bring him some sustenance. Duke Senior diffuses the situation by telling Orlando to fetch his friend, and then they can both join them for dinner. Orlando does exactly that; he and Adam are greeted with music and song. Over dinner, Duke Senior learns that Orlando is the son of Sir Rowland, one of his dearest supporters, and he welcomes the young man into his company of exiles.
Acts III, IV, & V
Having delivered old Adam to safety, Orlando can now focus on dealing with what truly ails him: his lovesickness caused by his yearning for Rosalind. He wanders the Forest of Arden, writing dreadfully bad love poems and pinning them to the bark of trees. The poems are discovered by Rosalind, still in disguise, who is shocked to see that they mention her by name – although she believes they are terribly written, she is nevertheless curious as to who wrote them. Touchstone comes along and mocks the poems with a bawdy version of his own. Rosalind tells him to stop teasing and reveals that she has found the poems on a tree, to which Touchstone responds, "Truly, the trees yield bad fruit" (3.2.114). Celia, also still in disguise, enters and reveals that she knows the author of the poems to be Orlando. Like a schoolgirl with a crush, Rosalind becomes ecstatic and bombards her friend with questions. But before Celia can answer, Orlando enters with Jaques. They are also talking about the poems, with Jaques being his usual miserable self:
JAQUES: Rosalind is your love's name?
ORLANDO: Yes, just.
JAQUES: I do not like her name.
ORLANDO: There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened.
(3.2.260-263)
Orlando does not recognize that the shepherd Ganymede is really Rosalind. Rather than immediately reveal herself, Rosalind decides to "speak to him like a saucy lacky and under that habit play the knave with him" (3.2.292-293). She approaches him and, in the guise of Ganymede, asks if he knows who has been carving the name 'Rosalind' into all the trees. Orlando admits that he is the man who is so "love-shaked" and wishes that he could get over his heartache. Rosalind offers to help cure Orlando by roleplaying as his lover – she will pretend to be Rosalind so that Orlando can practice courting her every day (thus, Rosalind is now disguised as Ganymede pretending to be Rosalind). Orlando consents, and the next day, he arrives at the agreed spot.
Rosalind tells him to "woo me, woo me," and asks what he would say to her if she were his "very, very Rosalind". When Orlando replies that he would kiss her before he spoke, Rosalind advises him against it, saying it would be better to wait to kiss until he had run out of things to say. As they continue to roleplay, Rosalind realizes that the Petrarchan Orlando has put her, and love in general, on a pedestal – it is left to her to teach him how to love realistically. When Orlando says that he would die for his love of her, Rosalind is quick to chide him: "No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost six thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man died in his own person, videlicet, for a love cause". She mentions a few famous examples of youths who have died for love in literature, before saying, "But these are all lies. Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love" (4.1.87-90,98-100). Later, when Orlando promises to love her "for ever and a day", Rosalind replies, "Say 'a day' without the 'ever'. No, no Orlando; men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives" (4.1.136-139). The scene ends with Celia officiating a mock marriage between the two.
All the while, several subplots have been unfolding. Touchstone has met a goat-keeper named Audrey and desires to marry her quickly. He sends for a country priest to marry them in the woods. When Jaques suggests that he wait to get married in a church, for those marriages are longer-lasting, Touchstone responds that his forest marriage will "be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife" (3.3.85). Later, Touchstone is confronted by William, a rival for Audrey's love. The clown easily outwits the uneducated William before sending him on his way. The other romantic subplot involves a shepherd named Silvius whose love for Phoebe, a shepherdess, has been unrequited. Rosalind, as Ganymede, intervenes to try to convince Phoebe to love Silvius; this backfires when Phoebe falls in love with Rosalind instead, believing her to be a man. Rosalind is quite irritated and writes Phoebe a letter, telling her it would be better that she love Silvius.
Later, the disguised Rosalind and Celia are waiting for Orlando, who is already two hours late for their daily rendezvous. Presently, a man enters, but to their shock, it is Orlando's older brother, Oliver. Oliver hands the women a bloody handkerchief before launching into a story. Orlando had been walking through the woods when he stumbled upon a sleeping man, who was about to be attacked by a "green and gilded snake" (4.3.114). Orlando scared the snake away, only for a hungry lioness to jump out of the underbrush. It was at this moment that Orlando recognized the sleeping man as Oliver; though his first impulse was to let the lioness kill his brother, familial loyalty ultimately won out over personal grudges. Orlando fought the lion and scared it off, but not before taking a nasty wound to the shoulder. Oliver – who had initially come into the forest to capture Orlando – became overwhelmed by gratitude and saw his brother in a new light. The brothers made amends before Oliver set off to bring the handkerchief to Rosalind, as Orlando requested. Upon hearing this story, Rosalind faints from the sight of blood as Oliver and Celia, stricken with each other's beauty, fall in love at first sight.
Oliver finds the recuperating Orlando and tells him that he plans to marry Aliena (aka Celia). Once he does, he promises to give the entire estate to Orlando. Rosalind, still disguised, then enters as Oliver makes his exit; perhaps seeing through her disguise, Oliver greets her as "fair sister" (5.2.19). Orlando is less observant – he confides in 'Ganymede' that, though he is happy for his brother, he wishes that he were marrying Rosalind. When she asks him if Ganymede cannot fill Rosalind's place, Orlando says that he is tired of pretending to woo the young man instead of his true love. Although she has enjoyed playing a man, Rosalind realizes she will have to put the costume aside if she is to have Orlando. She tells him that she can perform magic and will ensure that, at the same time Oliver marries Celia, he will be wed to Rosalind. Just then, Silvius and Phoebe enter, with Phoebe accusing 'Ganymede' of having acted with 'ungentleness' toward her. Each of the lovers then take turns confessing their attachments to one another before Rosalind puts a stop to the madness, telling them all to stop howling like "Irish wolves against the moon" (5.2115). She tells Phoebe that if 'Ganymede' will marry any woman, it will be her, but if 'he' will never marry a woman, then Phoebe must marry Silvius. When Phoebe agrees to these terms, Rosalind has everyone promise to gather the next day at Oliver's wedding.
The next day, 'Ganymede' gathers everyone together, reminding the couples of their agreements before disappearing into the forest – Duke Senior remarks to Orlando how similar the young shepherd looks to his daughter Rosalind. Rosalind soon returns without her disguise, accompanied by Hymen, the god of marriage; Phoebe, realizing that 'Ganymede' has been Rosalind all along, agrees to marry Silvius. Rosalind is reunited with her father before Hymen marries the four couples with great jubilation: Rosalind and Orlando, Celia and Oliver, Phoebe and Silvius, and Audrey and Touchstone. As the newlyweds prepare to celebrate, Jaques de Boys – the middle brother of Oliver and Orlando – appears and announces that Duke Frederick has repented of his evil ways and has given up his dukedom to join a monastery. Duke Senior is therefore reinstated to his dukedom, and all rejoice as they prepare to leave the forest and return to court. All the characters then exit except Rosalind, who remains on stage to deliver an epilogue to the audience, which ends with the words:
If I were a woman, I would
kiss as many of you as had beards that
pleased me, complexions that liked me, and breaths
that I defied not. And I am sure as many as have
good beards, or good faces, or sweet breaths will for
my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.
(Epilogue, 16-21)
