As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623.
As You Like It follows its heroine Rosalind as she flees persecution in her uncle's court, accompanied by her cousin Celia to find safety and, eventually, love, in the Forest of Arden. In the forest, they encounter a variety of memorable characters, notably the melancholy traveller Jaques, 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.
Characters
Main characters:
Court of Duke Frederick: Duke Frederick, Duke Senior's younger brother and his usurper, also Celia's father Rosalind, Duke Senior's daughter Celia, Duke Frederick's daughter and Rosalind's cousin Touchstone, a court fool or jester Le Beau, a courtier Charles, a wrestler Lords and ladies in Duke Frederick's court
Household of Old Sir Rowland de Boys ('of the woods'): Oliver de Boys, the eldest son and heir Jacques de Boys, the second son, announces Frederick's change of heart Orlando de Boys, the youngest son Adam, a faithful old servant who follows Orlando into exile Dennis, the servant who announces Charles's arrival in Oliver's orchard
Exiled court of Duke Senior in the Forest of Arden: Duke Senior, Duke Frederick's older brother and Rosalind's father Amiens, an attending lord and musician Jaques Lords in Duke Senior's forest court
Country folk in the Forest of Arden: Phebe, a proud shepherdess Silvius, a shepherd Audrey, a country girl Corin, an elderly shepherd William, a country man Sir Oliver Martext, a curate
Other characters: Hymen, officiates over the weddings in the end; god of marriage, as appearing in a masque Pages and musicians
Source text Shakespeare drew upon Thomas Lodge Jr.'s pastoral romance Rosalynde: Euphues Golden Legacie, written 1586–87 and first published in 1590.The Oxford Companion to English Literature, edited by Dinah Birch, Oxford University Press, 2009 Lodge's story is based upon "The Tale of Gamelyn". The background of this work is tied to Shropshire through Lodge's boyhood associations routed though his father Lord Mayor of London Thomas Lodge Snr, as his family previously held Soulton Hall before its acquisition by fellow Lord Mayor Sir Rowland Hill.
Building on this source text connection, literary historians note that the character of "Old Sir Rowland" may serve as an homage to Hill—who was a cousin of Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden. This tradition treats the character and the milieu of the play partly as a memorialization of Hill's activities safeguarding of Renaissance heritage during the Tudor period.
Date and text
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:
External evidence
As You Like It was entered into the Register of the Stationers' Company on 4 August 1600 as a work which was "to be stayed", meaning its publication was prevented for unknown reasons. Thomas Morley's First Book of Ayres, published in London in 1600 contains a musical setting for the song "It was a lover and his lass" from As 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 his Palladis Tamia. Although twelve plays are listed in Palladis Tamia, it was an incomplete inventory of Shakespeare's plays to that date (1598). The new Globe Theatre opened some time in the summer of 1599, and tradition has it that the new playhouse's motto was Totus mundus agit histrionem—"all the Globe's a stage"—an echo of Jaques' famous line "All the world's a stage" (II.7).Henry V, New Cambridge Shakespeare, Cambridge University Press, page 4, 2005 This evidence posits September 1598 to September 1599 as the time frame within which the play was likely written.
Internal evidence In act III, vi, Phebe refers to the famous line "Whoever loved that loved not at first sight" taken from Marlowe's Hero and Leander, which was published in 1598.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. This line, however, dates from 1593 when Marlowe was killed, and the poem was likely circulated in unfinished form before being completed by George Chapman. It is suggested in Michael Wood's In 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 in Deptford, owned by the widow Eleanor Bull in 1593. The 1598 posthumous publication of Hero 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 in Cheapside, London in 1598. However, it should be remembered Diana 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 for Queen Elizabeth I during her reign, along with Cynthia, Phoebe, Astraea, and the Virgin Mary. Certain anachronisms exist as well, such as the minor character Sir Oliver Martext's possible reference to the Marprelate Controversy which transpired between 1588 and 1589. On the basis of these references, it seems that As You Like It may have been composed in 1599–1600, but it remains impossible to say with any certainty.
Settings 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.
It transcends singular identity and geography. The Arden edition of Shakespeare makes the suggestion that the name "Arden" comes from a combination of the classical region of Arcadia and the biblical garden of Eden, as there is a strong interplay of classical and Christian belief systems and philosophies within the play.
Invoking France
Shakespeare likely also had in mind the French Arden Wood, featured in Orlando Innamorato, especially since the two Orlando epics, Orlando Innamorato and Orlando 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 the pastoral mode 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 a duchy which is presented as being in France, initially within the refined setting of a court. The Oxford Shakespeare edition proceeds on the basis that there is confusion between the two Ardens, and assumes that "Arden" is an anglicisation of the forested Ardennes region spanning parts of southeast Belgium, western Luxembourg, and northeastern France, where Lodge set his tale, and alters the spelling to reflect this.
Invoking England
The Forest of Arden also conjures the English Forest of Arden. The term 'forest' did not necessarily denote continuous woodland, "but a large predominantly wooded area with many clearings and areas of cultivation''. The English Forest of Arden gave its name to a preeminent Anglo-Saxon family who retained power after the Norman Conquest,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). of which Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden, was part. The Ardens had their principal seat 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 as Wem in Shropshire prior to the Conquest. Geographically vast, this ancient great forest extended across a wide band of Middle England, as far as the River Trent in the north and the River Severn in the south. It includes much of Warwickshire, and parts of Shropshire, Staffordshire, the West Midlands, and Worcestershire. and the have been used to set the boundaries Roman roads of Icknield Street (west), the Salt Road (south), Fosse Way (east), and Watling Street (north), was the ancestral home of the Arden family, extending well north of Stratford on the Goff Map of the 14th century.
Synopsis
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 as Ganymede ("Jove's own page"), and Celia, now disguised as Aliena (Latin for "stranger"), arrive in the Arcadian 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 impoverished tenant, and offer to buy his master's crude cottage.
Orlando and his servant Adam find the Duke and his men and are soon living with them and posting simplistic love poems for Rosalind on the trees (Shakespeare is said to have played Adam, though there is no modern evidence to support this).Dolan, Frances Introduction" in Shakespeare, As You Like It. New York: Penguin Books, 2000. Rosalind, who is 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".
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.