As You Like It

As You Like It is a pastoral comedy in which Rosalind, banished from court, disguises herself as a young man in the Forest of Arden and coaches the man she loves, Orlando, in how to woo her.

Main characters

• Rosalind, daughter of the banished Duke Senior
• Celia, her cousin, daughter of Duke Frederick
• Orlando, youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys
• Oliver, his elder brother
• Duke Senior, living in exile in the forest
• Duke Frederick, his usurping brother
• Jaques, a melancholy lord
• Touchstone, a court jester
• Silvius, Phoebe and Audrey, country people

Plot summary

This summary gives away the ending.

Duke Frederick has seized his brother's dukedom and driven him into exile in the Forest of Arden, where he lives with loyal lords 'like the old Robin Hood of England'. His daughter Rosalind has stayed at court as companion to her cousin Celia. Orlando, mistreated by his older brother Oliver, wins a wrestling match at court, and he and Rosalind fall in love at first sight.

Frederick banishes Rosalind. Celia goes with her, and for safety Rosalind disguises herself as a young man, Ganymede, with Celia as his sister Aliena and the jester Touchstone as company. Orlando, warned that Oliver means to kill him, also flees to Arden with his old servant Adam.

In the forest Orlando hangs love poems to Rosalind on the trees. Ganymede offers to cure him of love by pretending to be Rosalind so he can practise his courtship, a game that lets Rosalind test his love while hiding her own. Around them, the shepherd Silvius pines for Phoebe, who falls instead for Ganymede, and Touchstone courts the goatherd Audrey. Oliver arrives, is saved from a lioness by Orlando, repents and falls for Celia. Rosalind finally reveals herself, the god Hymen presides over four weddings, Frederick is converted by a hermit and returns the dukedom, and only Jaques stays behind in the forest.

Themes

• Court against country
• Gender, disguise and role-play
• Love and its follies
• Time, ageing and melancholy

Famous lines

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.

Jaques, Act 2 Scene 7

Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?

Rosalind, Act 4 Scene 1

Sweet are the uses of adversity.

Duke Senior, Act 2 Scene 1

More in our collection of famous Shakespeare quotes.

Sources

Shakespeare adapted Thomas Lodge's prose romance Rosalynde (1590), adding Jaques, Touchstone and Audrey. The Forest of Arden recalls both the Ardennes of Lodge's story and the Forest of Arden in Warwickshire, the home region of Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden.

On stage and screen

Rosalind has more lines than any other female character in Shakespeare. On the Elizabethan stage she was played by a boy actor playing a woman playing a man playing a woman, a layered joke the Epilogue plays with directly.

See where As You Like It sits in Shakespeare's career on the timeline, or read about the playhouses it was written for.