As You Like It was first printed in the collected edition of Shakespeare's plays, known as the First Folio, during 1623. No copy of it in Quarto 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. Why do you think Jaques delivers this speech? What is he trying to achieve? Is he trying to impress Duke Senior? To entertain the group? To lighten the mood? In many of his plays, including in As You Like It, Shakespeare creates contrasting atmospheres and settings that his characters move between. One of these atmospheres is that of a city or a court, where things are often portrayed as needlessly complicated and shrewdness and immorality wins. The other atmosphere is the country, where life is simple and straightforward, and hard work pays off. This country setting is referred to as the " green world," and appears in numerous Shakespearean plays, particularly in his comedies, such as As You Like It, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Romeo and Juliet. Given the history and natural geography of the area, tourism supports some of the local economy. Towns in the area include Hampton-in-Arden, Henley-in-Arden, and Tanworth-in-Arden. The name 'Arden' is used prominently across the region, such as Arden Academy and the Forest of Arden Hotel and Country Club. During the English Restoration, the King's Company was assigned the play by royal warrant in 1669. It is known to have been acted at Drury Lane in 1723, in an adapted form called Love in a Forest; Colley Cibber played Jaques. Another Drury Lane production seventeen years later returned to the Shakespearean text (1740). [35]

http://ljournal.ru/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/a-2017-023.pdf (Report). LJournal. 2017. doi: 10.18411/a-2017-023. {{ cite report}}: External link in |title= ( help) Since As You Like It is a comedy, the atmosphere, especially in the Forest of Arden, is portrayed as a light, happy atmosphere, despite the harshness of reality. Most importantly, As You Like It is a pastoral play, and like other pastoral literature, the forest is portrayed as a peaceful and even healing place. Pastoral literature likens the country to a type of utopia, while city life is portrayed as being full of corruption. What are the key images that stand out for you in this scene? What visual pictures do they suggest in your mind and how does that help you imagine the mood of this moment in the play? How do these images relate to the overarching themes of the play? William Shakespeare's play As 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 in As 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 traditional Petrarchan lovers. [32]The Arden Shakespeare has also published a number of series of literary and historical criticism to accompany The Arden Shakespeare Third Series and Arden Early Modern Drama imprints. The general editors for this series are Suzanne Gossett of Loyola University Chicago; John Jowett of the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham; and Gordon McMullan of King's College London. Another notable production was at the 2005 Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario, which was set in the 1960s and featured Shakespeare's lyrics set to music written by Barenaked Ladies.

Act 3, scene 3 Touchstone, desiring a goat-keeper named Audrey, has arranged for a country priest to marry them in the woods. Jaques persuades Touchstone to wait until he can have a real wedding in a church. What's more, they also seem to have plenty, also lending to the jovial atmosphere. We especially see how much they have when they are able to offer Orlando and Adam something to eat in Act 2, Scene 7. Act 2, scene 7 As Duke Senior and his companions sit down to eat, Orlando enters, demanding food. Welcomed by the duke, he brings Adam to join them. While for other dramatists, wild men were “a vogue that peaked and faded”, writes Barton, “Shakespeare’s interest in wild men seems to have extended throughout his writing career, taking in Oliver [ As You Like It], Timon [ Timon of Athens], the dancers in Bohemia [ The Winter’s Tale], Caliban [ The Tempest], Cardenio [ The History of Cardenio] and (in a sense) Herne the Hunter in The Merry Wives of Windsor.” Elsewhere in the book she explores the various traditions of Robin Hood and Merlin the enchanter, both of whom make appearances in plays by Shakespeare’s contemporaries, including Ben Jonson.

Venice

Jaques provides a sharp contrast to the other characters in the play, always observing and disputing the hardships of life in the country.

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. [7] 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. Thomas Morley ( c. 1557–1602) composed music for "It was a lover and his lass"; he lived in the same parish as Shakespeare, and at times composed music for Shakespeare's plays.During the last ice age, 12,000 years ago, there were no trees at all across England. At the end of the ice age, trees began to move northwards from Southern Europe. 5,000 years ago, England was largely covered by wildwood. Pollen analysis shows that the commonest tree, throughout central and southern England was the lime. Helen Mirren starred as Rosalind in the 1978 BBC videotaped version of As You Like It, directed by Basil Coleman. [48] Villages in the area bearing a record of the name include Hampton-in-Arden, Henley-in-Arden, and Tanworth-in-Arden.

Arden is the name of a large forest which conceptually incorporated Shakespeare's home town of Stratford-upon-Avon and a large area besides currently roughly corresponding to the modern West Midlands. The subsoil here is a generally a heavy deep clay. Digging a small hole, after about 9 inches down will hit clay, which is what oaks like, and many other trees don't. This heavy clay soil is less favourable to agriculture and so was less susceptible to being cleared for farmland. In March 2015, Bloomsbury Academic named Peter Holland of the University of Notre Dame, Zachary Lesser of the University of Pennsylvania, and Tiffany Stern of the University of Birmingham's Shakespeare Institute as general editors of The Arden Shakespeare fourth series. [17] Arden Early Modern Drama [ edit ] Bate, Jonathan (2008). Soul of the Age: the life, mind and world of William Shakespeare. London: Viking. p.37. ISBN 978-0-670-91482-1.In Shakespeare's mind the woodland imagary would have come from his local wood. Shakespeare seems to have compared Arden with the Biblical Eden. The idylic ife inside the forest contrasts with the "fallen" world outside the forest. There are several allusions to the Biblical story in the play. The Forest is a magical place, where strange coincidences occur, strange apparitions appear, and where people are transformed through self-discovery, or by finding love. So, the Forest is a place where there are no regulations or limits set by Time. Its importance is that it provides the space for the development of the most elementary emotion in its characters which is love.