As You Like It is apastoralcomedy byWilliam Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in theFirst Folio in 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance atWilton House in 1603 (the house having been a focus for literary activity underMary Sidney for much of the later 16th century) has been suggested as a possibility.
As You Like It follows its heroineRosalind as she flees persecution in her uncle's court, accompanied by her cousinCelia to find safety and, eventually, love, in the Forest of Arden. In the forest, they encounter a variety of memorable characters, notably the melancholy travellerJaques, who speaks one of Shakespeare's most famous speeches ("All the world's a stage") and provides a sharp contrast to the other characters in the play, always observing and disputing the hardships of life in the country.
Historically, critical response has varied, with some critics finding the play a work of great merit and some finding it to be of lesser quality than other Shakespearean works.
The play has been adapted for radio, film, and musical theatre.
As You Like It, closing scene: the eight characters who marry with the god Hymen restoring harmony before they are commanded to dance. (Performance in Pop Up Globe, 2017)
The direct and immediate source ofAs You Like It isThomas Lodge Jr'sRosalynde, Euphues Golden Legacie, written 1586–87 and first published in 1590.[1][2] Lodge's story is based upon "The Tale of Gamelyn".[3]
As You Like It was first printed in the collected edition of Shakespeare's plays, known as theFirst Folio, during 1623. No copy of it inQuarto exists, for the play is mentioned by the printers of the First Folio among those which "are not formerly entered to other men". By means of evidences, external and internal, the date of composition of the play has been approximately fixed at a period between the end of 1598 and the middle of 1599.[citation needed]
A local tradition holds that the play may have been written in theKenilworth area, atRowington.[4]Billsley Manor, now a hotel, claims the play was written in a room there,[5] although the authority for this is modern and originates in a claim in the 1976 bookFolklore of Warwickshire by Roy Palmer.[6]
As You Like It was entered into the Register of theStationers' Company on 4 August 1600 as a work which was "to be stayed", i.e., not published till the Stationers' Company were satisfied that the publisher in whose name the work was entered was the undisputed owner of the copyright.[citation needed] Thomas Morley'sFirst Book of Ayres, published in London in 1600 contains a musical setting for the song "It was a lover and his lass" fromAs You Like It. This evidence implies that the play was in existence in some shape or other before 1600.
It seems likely this play was written after 1598, since Francis Meres did not mention it in hisPalladis Tamia. Although twelve plays are listed inPalladis Tamia, it was an incomplete inventory of Shakespeare's plays to that date (1598). The newGlobe Theatre opened some time in the summer of 1599, and tradition has it that the new playhouse's motto wasTotus mundus agit histrionem—"all the Globe's a stage"—an echo of Jaques' famous line "All the world's a stage" (II.7).[7] This evidence posits September 1598 to September 1599 as the time frame within which the play was likely written.
In act III, vi, Phebe refers to the famous line "Whoever loved that loved not at first sight" taken fromMarlowe'sHero and Leander, which was published in 1598.[8] This line, however, dates from 1593 when Marlowe was killed, and the poem was likely circulated in unfinished form before being completed byGeorge Chapman. It is suggested inMichael Wood'sIn Search of Shakespeare that the words of Touchstone, "When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room", allude to Marlowe's assassination. According to the inquest into his death, Marlowe had been killed in a brawl following an argument over the "reckoning" of a bill in a room in a house inDeptford, owned by the widowEleanor Bull in 1593. The 1598 posthumous publication ofHero and Leander would have revived interest in his work and the circumstances of his death. These words in act IV, i, in Rosalind's speech, "I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain", may refer to an alabaster image of Diana which was set up inCheapside in 1598. However, it should be rememberedDiana is mentioned by Shakespeare in at least ten other plays, and is often depicted in myth and art as at her bath. Diana was a literary epithet forQueen Elizabeth I during her reign, along withCynthia,Phoebe,Astraea, and theVirgin Mary. Certain anachronisms exist as well, such as the minor character Sir Oliver Martext's possible reference to theMarprelate Controversy which transpired between 1588 and 1589. On the basis of these references, it seems thatAs You Like It may have been composed in 1599–1600, but it remains impossible to say with any certainty.
The majority of the action transpires in the "Forest of Arden," a location that is imposed on the play by Lodge Jr's source text.[9]
It transcends singular identity and geography. The Arden edition of Shakespeare makes the suggestion that the name "Arden" comes from a combination of theclassical region ofArcadia and thebiblicalgarden of Eden, as there is a strong interplay of classical and Christian belief systems and philosophies within the play.[10]
Shakespeare likely also had in mind the French Arden Wood, featured inOrlando Innamorato, especially since the twoOrlando epics,Orlando Innamorato andOrlando Furioso, have other connections with the play. In the Orlando mythos, Arden Wood is the location of Merlin's Fountain, a magic fountain causing anyone who drinks from it to fall out of love. Many editions keep Shakespeare's "Arden" spelling, partly because thepastoralmode depicts a fantastical world in which geographical details are irrelevant, and also because Shakespeare wrote in a time of non-standardised spelling. The play unfolds in aduchy which is presented as being in France, initially within the refined setting of court. The Oxford Shakespeare edition proceeds on the basis that there is confusion between the two Ardens, and assumes that "Arden" is ananglicisation of the forestedArdennes region of France, where Lodge set his tale,[11] and alters the spelling to reflect this.
The Arden name evokes theArdennes, a forested region spanning parts of southeastBelgium, westernLuxembourg, and northeasternFrance.
A map of Mercia in the C7: the Ancient scope of the English Forest of Arden is shown between the Avon, Severn and Trent
The Forest of Arden also conjures the EnglishForest of Arden.
The early 14th centuryGoff Map recording the extent of the Forest or Arden, with label placed near Birmingham and Tamworth
The term 'forest' did not necessarily denote continuous woodland ... but a large predominantly wooded area with many clearings and areas of cultivation''.[12]
The English Arden, defined by the Roman roads ofIcknield Street (west), the Salt Road (south),Fosse Way (east), and Watling Street (north), was the ancestral home of theArden family, extending well north of Stratford on theGoff Map of the 14th century.
This was a dominant Anglo-Saxon family who retained power after the Norman Conquest.[20] Shakespeare's mother,Mary Arden, was born andraised on a farm atWilmcote, just outside of Stratford-upon-Avon, on land belonging to this family.[21]
Coat of Arms of the Arden family
The Ardens had their main quarters at Park Hall,Solihull by the 16th century but had held extensive land in the wider region for centuries, with holdings extending as far north asWem in Shropshire prior to the Conquest.[22]
Frederick has usurped the duchy and exiled his older brother, Duke Senior. Duke Senior's daughter, Rosalind, has been permitted to remain at court because she is the closest friend of Frederick's only child,Celia. Orlando, a young gentleman of the kingdom who at first sight has fallen in love with Rosalind, is forced to flee his home after being persecuted by his older brother, Oliver. Frederick becomes angry and banishes Rosalind from court. Celia and Rosalind decide to flee together accompanied by the court fool, Touchstone, with Rosalind disguised as a young man and Celia disguised as a poor girl.
Rosalind, now disguised asGanymede ("Jove's own page"), and Celia, now disguised as Aliena (Latin for "stranger"), arrive in theArcadian Forest of Arden, where the exiled Duke now lives with some supporters, including "the melancholy Jaques", a malcontent figure, who is introduced weeping over the slaughter of a deer. "Ganymede" and "Aliena" do not immediately encounter the Duke and his companions. Instead, they meet Corin, an impoverishedtenant, and offer to buy his master's crude cottage.
Orlando and his servant Adam, meanwhile, find the Duke and his men and are soon living with them and posting simplistic love poems for Rosalind on the trees. It has been said that the role of Adam was played by Shakespeare, though this story is also said to be without foundation.[23] Rosalind, also in love with Orlando, meets him as Ganymede and pretends to counsel him to cure him of being in love. Ganymede says that "he" will take Rosalind's place and that "he" and Orlando can act out their relationship.
The shepherdess, Phebe, with whom Silvius is in love, has fallen in love with Ganymede (Rosalind in disguise), though "Ganymede" continually shows that "he" is not interested in Phebe. Touchstone, meanwhile, has fallen in love with the dull-witted shepherdess Audrey, and tries to woo her, but eventually is forced to be married first. William, another shepherd, attempts to marry Audrey as well, but is stopped by Touchstone, who threatens to kill him "a hundred and fifty ways".
A 2013 performance ofAs You Like It
Finally, Silvius, Phebe, Ganymede, and Orlando are brought together in an argument with each other over who will get whom. Ganymede says he will solve the problem, having Orlando promise to marry Rosalind, and Phebe promise to marry Silvius if she cannot marry Ganymede.
Orlando sees Oliver in the forest and rescues him from a lioness, causing Oliver to repent for mistreating Orlando. Oliver meets Aliena (Celia's false identity) and falls in love with her, and they agree to marry. Orlando and Rosalind, Oliver and Celia, Silvius and Phebe, and Touchstone and Audrey are all married in the finalscene, after which they discover that Frederick has also repented his faults, deciding to restore his legitimate brother to thedukedom and adopt a religious life. Jaques, ever melancholic, declines their invitation to return to the court, preferring to stay in the forest and to adopt a religious life as well. Finally Rosalind speaks an epilogue, commending the play to both men and women in the audience.
Though the play is consistently one of Shakespeare's most frequently performed comedies, scholars have long disputed over its merits.
George Bernard Shaw complained thatAs You Like It is lacking in the high artistry of which Shakespeare was capable. Shaw liked to think that Shakespeare wrote the play as a merecrowdpleaser, and signalled his own middling opinion of the work by calling itAsYou Like It—as if the playwright did not agree.[citation needed]Tolstoy objected to theimmorality of the characters and Touchstone's constant clowning.[citation needed] Other critics have found great literary value in the work.Harold Bloom has written that Rosalind is among Shakespeare's greatest and most fully realised female characters.
The elaborate gender reversals in the story are of particular interest to modern critics interested ingender studies.[citation needed] Through four acts of the play, Rosalind, who in Shakespeare's day would have been played by a boy, finds it necessary to disguise herself as a boy, whereupon the rustic Phebe, also played by a boy, becomes infatuated with this "Ganymede", a name withhomoerotic overtones. In fact, the epilogue, spoken by Rosalind to the audience, states rather explicitly that she (or at least the actor playing her) is not a woman. In several scenes, "Ganymede" impersonates Rosalind, so a boy actor would have been playing a girl disguised as a boy impersonating a girl.
1889 etching of the Forest of Arden, created by John Macpherson for a series byFrederick Gard Fleay
The ultimate recovery of harmony is marked with four weddings and a dance of harmony[24] for eight presided over by Hymen,[25] before most of the exiled court are able to return to the court and their previous stations are recovered.
Rosalind, Oliver and Celia. Shakespeare,As You Like It, Act 4, Scene 6. A painting by William Hamilton
The play begins in a courtly setting, where fighting, usurpation, betrayal and general disharmony are exhibited.
Most of the play is then a celebration of life in the country, where after intensifying disorder, harmony is recovered.
The inhabitants of Duke Frederick's court suffer the perils of arbitrary injustice and even threats of death; the courtiers who followed the old duke into forced exile in the "desert city" of the forest are, by contrast, experiencing liberty but at the expense of some easily borne discomfort. (Act II, i). A passage between Touchstone, the court jester, and shepherd Corin establishes the contentment to be found in country life, compared with the perfumed, mannered life at court. (Act III, I). At the end of the play the usurping duke and the exiled courtier Jaques both elect to remain within the forest.[26]
Usurpation and injustice are significant themes of this play. The new Duke Frederick usurps his older brother Duke Senior, while Oliver parallels this behavior by treating his younger brother Orlando so ungenerously as to compel him to seek his fortune elsewhere. Both Duke Senior and Orlando take refuge in the forest, where justice is restored "through nature".[27]
Love is the central theme ofAs You Like It, like other romantic comedies of Shakespeare. Following the tradition of a romantic comedy,As You Like It is a tale of love manifested in its varied forms. In many of the love-stories, it islove at first sight. This principle of "love at first sight" is seen in the love-stories of Rosalind and Orlando, Celia and Oliver, as well as Phebe and Ganymede. The love-story of Audrey and Touchstone is a parody of romantic love. Another form of love is between women, as in Rosalind and Celia's deep bond.[28]
The play features multiple examples of usurpation of people's title's or property and the injustice social hierarchies. However, it ends happily with reconciliation and forgiveness. Duke Frederick is converted by a hermit and he restores the dukedom to Duke Senior who, in his turn, restores the forest to the deer. Oliver also undergoes a change of heart, learns to love Orlando, and transfers their father's inheritance to his younger brother. Thus, the play ends on a note of rejoicing and merry-making.[29]
In this play, the universal globe, inhabited by ordinary mortals, is shown at the end as the audience liked it: happy and reconciled by love. However, the text can be seen as a pretext. "This wide and universal theatre present more woeful pageants" (II, vii, 137–138). The comedy in fact establishes a respite from the so-called War Stage.[30] "Are not these woods more free from peril than the envious court?" (II, i, 3–4).
From Oliver's description (IV, iii, 98–120), a golden green snake is instead seen by Orlando threateningly approaching the open mouth of "a wretched ragged man", tightening around his neck, "but suddenly seeing Orlando, it unlinked itself and with glides did slip away into a bush" (IV, iii, 106, 110–113). It can be deduced that with the appearance of the actor on stage, envy suddenly disappears. He who had fought like a Hercules, a hero not by chance invoked by Rosalind ("Now Hercules be thy speed", I, ii, 204–210), just before the challenge with "Charles, the wrestler", in allusion to the figure of the insign of Globe Theatre, which accompanied the presumed inscription: "Totus Mundus Agit Histrionem".[31]
Gender poses as one of the play's integral themes. While disguised as Ganymede, Rosalind also presents a calculated perception ofaffection that is "disruptive of [the]social norms" and "independent of conventional gender signs" that dictate women's behavior as irrational. In her bookAs She Likes It: Shakespeare's Unruly Women,[32] Penny Gay analyzes Rosalind's character in the framework of these gender conventions that ascribefemininity with qualities such as "graciousness, warmth ... [and] tenderness". However, Rosalind's demanding tone in her expression of emotions towards Orlando contradicts these conventions. Her disobedience to these features of femininity proves a "deconstruction ofgender roles", since Rosalind believes that "the wiser [the woman is], the waywarder" she is.[32][33] By claiming that women who are wild are smarter than those who are not, Rosalind refutes the perception of women as passive in their pursuit of men.
Other scholars have noted that the ending reconfirms and further entrenches patriarchal values. Kay Stanton, for example, argues that both Orlando and Rosalind have a nostalgia for the benevolent patriarchy of the past.[34] She also notes the Celia, a character who alternatively images a world run by female solidarity,[35] is entirely silent during act 5.
University of Wisconsin professor Richard Knowles, the editor of the 1977 NewVariorum edition of this play, in his article "Myth and Type inAs You Like It",[36] pointed out that the play contains mythological references in particular toEden and toHercules.
As You Like It is known as a musical comedy because of the number of songs in the play. There are more songs in it than in any other play of Shakespeare. These songs and music are incorporated in the action that takes place in the forest of Arden, as shown below:
"Under the Greenwood tree": It summarises the views of Duke Senior on the advantages of country life over the amenities of the court. Amiens sings this song.
"Blow, blow, thou winter wind": This song is sung by Amiens. It states that physical suffering caused by frost and winter winds is preferable to the inner suffering caused by man's ingratitude.
"What shall he have that killed the deer": It is another song which adds a lively spectacle and some forest-colouring to contrast with love-talk in the adjoining scenes. it highlights the pastoral atmosphere.
"It was a lover and his lass": It serves as a prelude to the wedding ceremony. It praises spring time and is intended to announce the rebirth of nature and the theme of moral regeneration in human life.Thomas Morley is known to have set the lyrics of this song to music in the form of alute song.[37]
Shakespeare uses prose for about 55% of the text, with the remainder in verse.[38]Shaw affirms that as used here the prose, "brief [and] sure", drives the meaning and is part of the play's appeal, whereas some of its verse he regards only as ornament.[39] The dramatic convention of the time required the courtly characters to use verse, and the country characters prose, but inAs You Like It this convention is deliberately overturned.[38] For example, Rosalind, although the daughter of a Duke and thinking and behaving in high poetic style, actually speaks in prose as this is the "natural and suitable" way of expressing the directness of her character, and the love scenes between Rosalind and Orlando are in prose (III, ii, 277).[40] In a deliberate contrast, Silvius describes his love for Phebe in verse (II, iv, 20). As a mood of a character changes, he or she may change from one form of expression to the other in mid-scene. In ametafictional touch, Jaques cuts off a prose dialogue with Rosalind because Orlando enters, using verse: "Nay then, God be wi' you, an you talk in blank verse" (IV, i, 29).[41] The defiance of convention is continued when the epilogue is given in prose.
Act II, Scene VII, Line 139, features one of Shakespeare's most famous monologues, spoken by Jaques, which begins:
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
The arresting imagery and figures of speech in the monologue develop the central metaphor: a person's lifespan is a play in seven acts. These acts, or "seven ages", begin with "the infant/Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms" and work through six further vivid verbal sketches, culminating in "second childishness and mere oblivion,/Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything".
Touchstone and Audrey during a 2009 performance of the play
The main theme ofpastoral comedy is love in all its guises in a rustic setting, the genuine love embodied by Rosalind contrasted with the sentimentalised affectations of Orlando, and the improbable happenings that set the urban courtiers wandering to find exile, solace or freedom in a woodland setting are no more unrealistic than the string of chance encounters in the forest which provoke witty banter and which require no subtleties of plotting and character development. The main action of the first act is no more than a wrestling match, and the action throughout is often interrupted by a song. At the end,Hymen himself arrives to bless the wedding festivities.
William Shakespeare's playAs You Like It clearly falls into the pastoral romance genre; but Shakespeare does not merely use the genre, he develops it. Shakespeare also used the pastoral genre inAs You Like It to 'cast a critical eye on social practices that produce injustice and unhappiness, and to make fun of anti-social, foolish and self-destructive behaviour', most obviously through the theme of love, culminating in a rejection of the notion of the traditionalPetrarchan lovers.[42]
The stock characters in conventional situations were familiar material for Shakespeare and his audience; it is the lightrepartee and the breadth of the subjects that provide opportunities for wit that put a fresh stamp on the proceedings. At the centre theoptimism of Rosalind is contrasted with themisogynistic melancholy of Jaques. Shakespeare would take up some of the themes more seriously later: the usurper Duke and the Duke in exile provide themes forMeasure for Measure andThe Tempest.
The play, turning upon chance encounters in the forest and several entangled love affairs in a serene pastoral setting, has been found, by many directors, to be especially effective staged outdoors in a park or similar site.
Another performance may possibly have taken place atWilton House inWiltshire, the country seat of theEarls of Pembroke, whereMary Sidney is understood to have been running a kind of literary salon, her sonWilliam Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, hostedJames I and his Court at Wilton House from October to December 1603, whileJacobean London was suffering an epidemic ofbubonic plague. TheKing's Men were paid £30 to come to Wilton House and perform for the King and Court on 2 December 1603. A Herbert family tradition holds that the play acted that night wasAs You Like It.[44]
During the English Restoration, theKing's Company was assigned the play byroyal warrant in 1669. It is known to have been acted atDrury Lane in 1723, in an adapted form calledLove in a Forest;Colley Cibber played Jaques. Another Drury Lane production seventeen years later returned to the Shakespearean text (1740).[45]
Notable recent productions ofAs You Like It include the following examples:
In 2023 a company which castRose Ayling-Ellis, who has a hearing impairment, as Celia performed the play at@sohoplace.[47] This was the subject of a documentary on experiences of living with hearing impairment.[48]
Roger Quilter set "Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind" for voice and piano (1905) in his 3 Shakespeare songs Op. 6
Florence Wickham wrote the music and lyrics for her operaRosalind, based onAs You Like It, which premiered at the open air Rockridge Theater inCarmel, New York, in August 1938.
Cleo Laine sang a jazz setting of "It was a lover and his lass" on her 1964 album "Shakespeare... and all that Jazz". The composer is credited as "Young".
Rush's drummer and composerNeil Peart incorporated the passage "All the world's indeed a stage / And we are merely players / Performers and portrayers / Each another's audience / Outside the gilded cage" into the lyrics for"Limelight" from their 1981 progressive rock albumMoving Pictures.[52]
John Rutter composed a setting of "Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind" for chorus in 1992.
Michael John Trotta composed a setting of "Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind" for choir in 2013.[54]
In 2017The Public Theater's Public Works program presented a musical adaptation ofAs You Like It, with original music and lyrics byShaina Taub.[55]
In 2018 Vancouver'sBard on the Beach introduced a musical adaptation ofAs You Like It, with songs byThe Beatles performed by the cast.[56] The production "broke Bard box office records" and toured several other cities, returning to Vancouver in 2023.[57]
The1936 adaptation of the play wasLaurence Olivier's first Shakespeare film. Olivier, however, served only in an acting capacity (performing the role of Orlando), rather than producing or directing the film.J. M. Barrie, author ofPeter Pan, wrote the treatment. Made in England,As You Like It also starred directorPaul Czinner's wifeElisabeth Bergner, who played Rosalind with a thick German accent. Although it was not a Hollywood production like the versions ofA Midsummer Night's Dream andRomeo and Juliet made at about the same time and its cast was made up entirely of Shakespearean actors, it was not considered a success by either Olivier or the critics.
The 1902 Broadway musicalTommy Rot used anembedded narrative device where there was a play within a play; in this case the story taking place during a production ofAs You Like It.[63]The Seven Doors of Danny, by Ricky Horscraft and John McCullough is based on the "Seven Ages of Man" element of the "All the world's a stage" speech and was premiered in April 2016.
Contemporary art in a 2024 exhibition in Shrewsbury inspired by the play
The artist Salvador Dalí worked up and published costume and set designs for the play when it was directed byLuchino Visconti at theTeatro Eliseo in Rome in 1948.[64]
Numerous other artists have been inspired to paint the play, including:[65]
^The Oxford Companion to English Literature, edited byDinah Birch, Oxford University Press, 2009
^Lodge, Thomas (10 January 2012).Lodge's 'Rosalynde': Being the Original of Shakespeare's 'As You Like It'. HardPress Publishing.ISBN978-1-290-07302-8.
^Palmer, Roy (1994) [1976].The Folklore of Warwickshire. Llanerch Press.ISBN978-1-897853-46-7.
^Henry V, New Cambridge Shakespeare, Cambridge University Press, page 4, 2005
^Act III, sc. 6, 80f. Michael Hattaway (Ed.): William Shakespeare:As You Like It. The New Cambridge Shakespeare. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2009, p. 174.
^Puryear, C.L. (1976)The effects of the Norman Conquest on Anglo-Saxon Aristocracy. Honors Thesis. University of Richmond. Available at: https://scholarship.richmond.edu/honors-theses/ (Accessed: 21 September 2025).
^Wilmcote, Mary Arden's Farm Station Road; Warwickshire; Cv37 9un."Mary Arden's Farm".Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Retrieved21 September 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^Dromgool, John (25 October 1985). "Domesday TV series plan good for Wem".Shrewsbury Chronical. p. 1.
^Dolan, Frances Introduction" in Shakespeare,As You Like It. New York: Penguin Books, 2000.
^Williamson, Marilyn L (1986). "The Comedies in Historical Context". In Habicht, Werner; et al. (eds.).Images of Shakespeare. University of Delaware Press. pp. 189, 193.ISBN0-87413-329-7.
^Freedman, Penelope (2007).Power and Passion in Shakespeare's Pronouns. Aldershot, England: Ashgate. p. 89.ISBN978-0-7546-5830-6.
^"What sparked off the war was Marston's version of the anonymous satireHistriomastix [1599], in which Jonson recognised himself in the character Crysoganus, a role not to his liking" (Anna Anzi,Storia del teatro inglese dalle origini al 1660, ch. III, Einaudi, Turin 1977, p. 151).
^Ezio Fiorillo,Shakespeare's Globe. As You Like It, aut Enim Interpretari Placet, translation by Jackie Little, All'insegna del Matamoros, Algua (Bergamo) 2013. Digital edition.ISBN978-88-907489-2-9. This analysis of the book seeks to point out how the underlying intent of the play's production was to represent an allegorical parade ('pageant') of the entire London theatrical community. Original title:Shakespeare's Globe. As You Like It, o Come mi piace interpretare. All'insegna del Matamoros, Milan 1999.ISBN978-88-907489-0-5.
^Kay, Stanton (1989). "Remember the Patriarchy in As You Like It". In Dotterer, Ronald L. (ed.).Shakespeare: text, subtext, and context. Susquehanna University studies. London: Associated University Presses.ISBN978-0-941664-92-9.
^abBate, Jonathan;Rasmussen, Eric (2010).As You Like It. Basingstoke, England: Macmillan. p. 10.ISBN978-0-230-24380-4.Reversing dramatic convention, it is the courtly characters who speak prose and the shepherds who court in verse.
^Shaw, George Bernard (1897). "Shaw on Shakespeare". In Tomarken, Edward (ed.).As You Like It from 1600 to the Present: Critical Essays. New York: Routledge. pp. 533–534.ISBN0-8153-1174-5.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
^Gentleman, Francis (1770). "The dramatic censor; or, critical companion". In Tomarken, Edward (ed.).As You Like It from 1600 to the Present: Critical Essays. New York: Routledge. p. 232.ISBN0-8153-1174-5.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
^Kane, Tyler (23 April 2012)."10 Great Shakespeare-Inspired Songs".Paste. Archived fromthe original on 23 April 2021. Retrieved10 May 2022.... in its heyday of 1981 the band wrote a song about battling with success. "Limelight", opens up with a paraphrase of a speech in Shakespeare'sAs You Like It. The lyrics, which were written by the quiet-but-undeniably-smart drummer Neil Peart, came after the band's success with albums like2112 andPermanent Waves.