I think if I read this with less interruption and maybe a little more sleep, I would have enjoyed it more. As it was, I found it a little challenging to follow who was jumping into a scene and speaking. ( )

Problemi dramatik në sjelljen e çoroditur të dy vëllezërve të ligj ndaj dy vëllezërve të mirë, si dhe pengesat e lidhura me këtë sjellje ndaj martesës së disa çifteve në këtë pjesë teatrore (sidomos të Rozalindës me Orlandon) zgjidhen pa vështirësi dhe, pa pikë dyshimi, kemi të bëjmë me një fund të lumtur.

خیلی معمولی. ( )

Lots of familiar quotations and saying we still use today to note, a rather tiresome amount of Touchstone the clown, and a couple of people experiencing moral/religious conversions off-stage/page in a way that is very helpful for the resolution of the plot. Fun though. ( )

Um. What?

Shakespeare may be considered a brilliant play-writer, but I could hardly care less. He doesn't seem to be doing much for me, so far.

I absolutely loved "Hamlet", otherwise I would not be here, willingly subjecting myself to torture.

Where art thou, genius?

(this was absurd) ( )

This. like The Tempest, is a play about exiles, perhaps not in a wood, but those who feel not quite in their parent society. Orlando, is in exile inside his family, Rosalind, is a woman with her own agenda, which is relatively rare in the Comedies, and the Duke is legally banished. They claim, to some degree their places, by the closing curtain. This is the play with "The Seven Ages of Man.". ( )

Maybe my favorite Shakespeare comedy (excluding the problem plays). Light and breezy and fairytaleish, with stunning language and, in my opinion, the best love story in Shakespeare. Rosalind and Orlando match wits without wounding each other, and confuse identities without making you feel like the plot has tricked them into a match. The plot is absurd, of course, but the tone helps you to embrace it instead of disbelieve it, so when Jaques de Boys comes running in at the last to resolve everyone's problems in one speech, you laugh rather than groan. ( )

As You Like It is a complex contraption with a simple key to unlock it; or, if not to unlock it, to at least give the door a budge. The contraption is the almost impossibly intricate lattice of characters, arcs and themes that make up the play. The key is the play's most famous passage: "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts" (pg. 59).

Taken literally, it is very difficult to divine a purpose for the play. The conflicts which start the play (between the competing dukes, and also the two competing brothers Orlando and Oliver) are both later resolved off-stage, in a way that would be unsatisfying for a plot-driven (or even character-driven) production. The ending gets rather drawn out. And in between this beginning and end we follow a bewildering network of characters as they romp about the fantastical Forest of Arden.

But it is that interplay of characters which is the purpose of As You Like It. The play is a play of parallels and intersections; the Forest of Arden the stage, and its trees the sieve between which the characters must be filtered and altered. The characters are players, with their exits and entrances, and they all play many parts. Everyone here, it seems, has moments of cynicism and moments where they swoon; all of them are moving through this forest. The only characters who don't change are the two who, throughout the play and also at its end, are outcasts: Touchstone and Jaques. Both are, in their way, 'fools' to the other characters, who are at least willing to risk all for love. These two, in contrast, are not willing to play the game: the game of life, with all its parts and players and exits and entrances. Touchstone is even called out on this by Jaques – but then again, Jaques is no better: he weeps over the deer without knowing why. He can "moralize… into a thousand similes" (pg. 46), but he won't truly feel; he won't truly risk himself in this life.

This, perhaps, is the reason for the pastoral theme, which would otherwise be difficult to square. You have to go out from conventional life in the city in order to risk all in nature; you have to risk failure in order to find love. You have to play the game. The conventional use of a pastoral is to juxtapose the stolidity and artificiality of city life, or civilization in general, with the harmony and freedom of natural, country life. At first, Shakespeare seems to play this straight, with plenty of exuberant remarks by various characters about "this life more sweet", frolicking in the forest and finding "sermons in stones, and good in everything" (pg. 45). But, being Shakespeare, he can't help but be clever and dexterous: he inverts it, turns it upside down and inside out, explores its dimensions and sublimates themes, sometimes so quickly or discreetly or prolifically that your mind cannot keep up and doesn't even register that things are moving, like the frame-rate of a film reel. I've often thought that, in his comedies, perhaps Shakespeare was too clever for his own good. The audience can't always keep up, and the intricate latticework can only be fully appreciated by a madman or a genius.

Because Shakespeare does query the pastoral theme as much as he reinforces it. The city has its merits: Orlando states proudly that he is "inland bred, And know some nurture" (pg. 58). In this passage, he seeks to prove that he can treat with a duke as a man of civility, rather than as a rutting nature-dweller. Similarly, Shakespeare remarks how the exiled duke and his men seem content with their overthrow, and "fleet the time carelessly" in the forest "as they did in the golden world" (pg. 32). That is, they abandon the responsibilities of the city, of proper governance (and perhaps this can be further expanded to mean proper governance of their own desires). For Shakespeare, the characters can be seen as intruders on the Forest; in killing deer – the "native burghers" of this land – for food, Jaques considers them more usurpers than the duke who banished them (pg. 45).

These connections are, in truth, difficult to reason out with any certainty, and at times you can no more draw out a lucid, complete theme from As You Like It than you could reconstitute flour, sugar and eggs from a baked cake. Consider the following disconnected observations I made, which warrant mention but which I struggle to organise into a coherent, flowing review:

1) Jaques rhapsodizes about the spoiled sanctity of the forest but, as I mentioned earlier, calls out Touchstone for wanting to get "married under a bush like a beggar" rather than in a church (pg. 75). What does this mean for the topsy-turvy pastoral country/city theme? Touchstone, the jester, ends up agreeing (cynically) to marry in a church, but the 'true' lovers, Rosalind and Orlando, exchange vows in the forest (pg. 85).

2) Is the natural Forest of Arden the proving ground for ardent love? The unloved wife strays; it's a 'foolish' woman who "cannot make her fault her husband's occasion" (pg. 86). Kill love and you become the cuckold: "What shall he have that killed the deer? His leather skin and horns to wear" (pg. 87) – horns being a Tudor sign of a cuckold.

3) Adam warns Orlando that his brother is plotting against him and will "burn the lodging where you use to lie, And you within it" (pg. 48). Does this relate to the deer, mentioned above, being driven from its own habitat by interlopers?

4) Adam is a minor character who seems to be dismissed by most critics, but I wonder if he's not the most important character. An old servant torn between two brothers, does he not embody more than anyone the pastoral struggle between city and country? Adam, having already loved, doesn't need to risk going back into the Forest of Arden like the other characters do, and he suffers for it. He seems to be forgotten about in the play itself, and has no fate: but is he not perhaps the "old religious man" beneath a tree who resolves the conflicts offstage (pp91, 105)? Oliver claims to be the man beneath the tree in the first instance, but his recounting of the story is vague; perhaps when he speaks of "his brother, his elder brother" (pg. 91), it is in the Christian sense that all men are brothers and to mistreat one is to mistreat all?

5) Further to that previous point, is the Forest of Arden analogous to the Garden of Eden? Surely it's not a coincidence that the character's name is Adam, that (if he is indeed the 'old religious man') he dispenses wisdom from beneath a tree (the Tree of Life?) and has a serpent around his neck (pp90-91)? What are we to make of the speculation that Adam was played, in initial performances of the play, by Shakespeare himself? The playwright – the creator?

6) Shakespeare's mother's maiden name was Arden; is she analogous to Mother Nature? Does this have something to do with the cross-dressing dynamics of Rosalind in the play? Males (boy actors playing female characters in Tudor times) getting in touch with their female side? Men returning to the forest, the mother they first came from?

You begin to see, I hope, how prolifically connections of this sort can be made, and how frustrating it can be to identify them but struggle to apply them to the whole. The play itself doesn't codify them, which is why As You Like It doesn't rank as highly as Shakespeare's more accessible tragedies, or some of his more rigorously-constructed comedies and satires. I've written more than 1,500 words in this review, and scarcely even mentioned Rosalind and the gender dynamics and the other more commonly discussed aspects of the play. Perhaps, as I said earlier, Shakespeare is too clever for his own good and only a madman or a genius can appreciate the variety here. In modesty, of the two I'd have to lay a tentative claim to some madness.

The play is a strange thing to wrestle with. It is superficially frustrating and metaphysically thrilling. Perhaps the fantastical craziness is intended; the only hope in this crazy stage-world of many entrances and exits is ardency; to, as Rosalind resolves, "prove a busy actor in their play" (pg. 77). Perhaps this is why, daringly enough, she is the closest As You Like It has to a hero. The title of the play might well be an instruction, a stage direction from the playwright to the audience rather than the actors. We're carried along by the world-stage and struggle to make sense of it, even when we find connections and catch glimpses of its underlying sense, engineered by its madman-genius creator. What matters is that we take part, we play the game. What we catch along the way, or see slip by, is of secondary importance. The perception is the key; the awareness that the game is being played, that the play has started. You can engage or withdraw, as you like it. The play takes place in spring, and you can either perceive that season as following winter or preceding summer. ( )

It was like watching a family romantic comedy drama. And im happy at the end everyone found someone to share their life with. Even touchstone. Lol ( )

First Shakespeare play, can't actually judge it, can I?
Honestly, I wish we were reading something else in my English Literature class, like Hamlet or Macbeth.
This play was a bore. There were some pretty good lines, but nonetheless, a bore. I only liked the character of the melancholy Jaques.
And I was expecting a really strong female character judging by the reviews but I HATED Rosalind. She was the most hypocritical female character ever.
I wish I could say I loved the play, but I didn't. I just didn't like it, it wasn't what I thought it will be. ( )

Nasıl Hoşunuza Giderse genel olarak güzel bir oyundu ama pek benim tarzım olan bir oyun değildi. Bu yüzden bu oyunu ne çok iyi olarak sınıflayabilirim ne de kötü bir oyun olduğunu iddia edebilirim. ( )

I struggled with the language ( )

I recently ordered this L.A. Theater Works audio production for work and couldn't resist the temptation of having James Marsters reading Shakespeare in my ears. The production is excellent and while the physical comedy that comes with cross-dressing is obviously missing, the actors do an excellent job of conveying the comedy using just their voices. An excellent way to revisit the Bard. ( )

Seeing as I am not a native English speaker, this was quite difficult to read. I suspect much of the humor and wit went right over my head... :-)

But this was something I wanted to do for the longest time. Partly inspired by my high school English teacher who battled to expose us barbarians to some culture. We did a poem by Shakespeare in class and it was an eyeopener for me. Since then I was fascinated by him. I love all the movies made from his works, but never read any plays. Well, now i can cross it off my list. ( )

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: As You Like It
Series: ----------
Author: William Shakespeare
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Play, Comedy
Pages: 120
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Orlando, youngest son of a dead lord, has been cheated by his older brother. He runs off to the Duke, out wrestles the duke's champion and meets, and falls in love with, Rosalind. He then runs off to the forest because the Duke didn't like his pappy. There he pines for Rosalind. He meets a young man, who is really Rosalind in diguise ands woos said young man who claims that he can cure anyone of love. Orlando is successful and Rosalind marries him, all the while she is orchestrating the marriage of 2 other couples along with her own nuptials. Orlando's brother gives up the estates to him, the naughty duke, Rosalind's Uncle, takes religious vows and Rosalind's daddy becomes ruler.

Everybody is happy. The End.

My Thoughts:

I keep wanting to treat these plays like novels and you just can't do that. The value contained in the words aren't necessarily the actual plots. Boy and Girl fall in love, overcome Incredible Odds, Happy Ending for Everyone. That story is as old and Jacob and Rachel. Yet, seeing these plot points is good as it gives you the necessary understanding of where so much of our modern stories come from. There is truly nothing new under the sun.

You can say that again.

What I am liking is the metred cadence. This is a play. It is meant to be spoken. While I am not, at this point in time, reading these outloud, I am not discounting the idea of doing that for one of these, just to hear how it flows. I am no thespian, nor poetic enough to write in iambic pentameter, but some time this year I'm going to try to write one of my reviews like it was a Shakespeare play. I already know that will take some serious work. The whole mindset has to be different than the prose I am used to and think in.

Honestly, I can't even tell you exactly what iambic pentameter IS or how to do it. I know roughly it is so many this and thats over so many lines, blah, blah, blah. Not sure if rhyming is necessary or not. See, I have a lot to learn before I even attempt a review like that. And Shakespeare wrote a whole raft full of the bloody things.

★★★☆½ ( )

My first Shakespeare (read, rather than performed). I'd just turned fourteen and was interested in Knowing the Literary Canon. I pretty much picked this play at random and imagined Orlando Bloom the whole time (Pirates of the Caribbean had just come out if you recall). I printed off "Why should this a desert be?" and stuck it to our fridge and for that reason still use the word "quintessence" more than any person should. It's also retained a very special place in my heart because it was the first. ( )

Given as part of the course-work for BADA Summer 1999 in Oxford. The (very useful and well-researched) introduction is almost as long as the play itself! Loads of footnotes to help comprehension for the lay-reader. ( )

I've been made aware that modernists like to write fiction that is basically plot-free, where the point is to entertain with beautiful, glorious language, not to excite or inform. One modernist, John Barth, has argued that what he is doing is more reactionary than modern, that he was merely returning to what masters like Cervantes and Rabelais did.

Or, in this case, Shakespeare. He had already written one nearly meta-fictional play, Love's Labour Lost, where witty people did nothing but talk wittily about life. He revised and improved the idea for this play, where a group of people hide in the Forest of Arden and do little but discourse of love and life. I loved it all, but especially the typically plucky heroine and the two polar opposite clowns. ( )

More of Shakespear's drag king fetish; to hetero audiences, light entertainment only notable as the source of the "all the world's a stage" quote. ( )

Fabulous language. "All the world's a stage" is just one of many quotable quotes. Very much a fairy tale, but the wonderful Rosalind and the beautiful words of Shakespeare has made it one of my favorite of his comedies thus far. ( )

Had to read this in college so I could act the part of the bad brother Oliver in the College Play, and learned to enjoy, if not love, the bearded Bard. ( )

I liked this play, which I had thought was something else when I first started it! I found the comedy to be of the milder type of making me smile rather than laugh but still fun. There are several famous speeches, most memorable being the one about the seven stages of life. ( )

With its cross-dressed heroine, gender games and explorations of sexual ambivalence, its Forest of Arden and melancholy Jacques, this book speaks directly to the twenty-first century. It connects the play to the Elizabethan court and its dynamic queen and demonstrates that the play's vital roots in its own time give it new life in ours.

As You Like It has long been admired as one of Shakespeare's most exuberant early comedies, complete with one of the Bard's funniest and toughest heroines, Rosalind. Based on Thomas Lodge's Elizabethan novel Rosalynde, As You Like It follows the discontented Orlando as he is exiled from the tyrannical French court of Duke Frederick. By chance Frederick also banishes Rosalind, daughter of the usurped Duke Senior. The play then moves to the Forest of Arden, where chaos and misrule ensue, as Rosalind cross dresses "all points like a man", disguised as the saucy Ganymede and encourages the naive Orlando to "woo me, woo me, for now I am in a holiday humour". Meanwhile her clown Touchstone causes hilarity and havoc amongst the exiled lords and the pastoral inhabitants of the forest. The play concludes with Rosalind's extraordinary "unmasking" Epilogue addressed to the audience, where she offers to "kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me". As You Like It remains one of Shakespeare's most popular comedies, yet it is also appreciated by critics for its complex exploration of cross dressing and sexual politics, and its interest in relations between the country and the city. --Jerry Brotton