As You Like It

This wisely funny comedy, which contains some of Shakespeare's loveliest poetry, contrasts a country's world of envy and rivalry with a forest's world of compassion and harmony. In the Forest of Arden, the banished young heroine, Rosalind, disguised as a gentleman farmer, encounters an extraordinary assemblage of characters, including a fool, a malcontent traveler, her own banished father, and the banished young man she loves. Romantic happiness triumphs, even as we laugh at the excesses of love, at the ways of court and countryside, indeed, at everything, in this masterpiece of comic writing,

Shakespeare's As You Like It can appear bright or sombre in performance: a feast of language and a delight for comic actors; or a risk-taking exploration of gender roles. This edition offers an account of what makes the play both innocent and dangerous, mapping the complexities of its setting (a no-man's-land related to both France and England) and giving an ample commentary on its language and an analytical account of performance.