As you like it

With its cross-dressed heroine, gender games and explorations of sexual ambivalence, its Forest of Arden and melancholy Jacques, As You Like It speaks directly to the twenty-first century. Juliet Dusinberre demonstrates that Rosalind’s authority in the play grows from new ideas about women and reveals that Shakespeare’s heroine reinvents herself for every age.

But As You Like It is also deeply rooted in Elizabethan culture. Through the concealing medium of literary pastoral, Shakespeare addresses some of the hottest issues of his own time, including the fortunes of the Earl of Essex and the theatre’s confrontation with Puritan disapproval; this new edition connects the play to the Elizabethan court and its dynamic queen and demonstrates that the play’s vital roots in its own time give it new life in ours.

From the Back Cover
The Arden Shakespeare is the established scholarly edition of Shakespeare's plays. Now in its third series, Arden offers the best in contemporary scholarship. Each volume guides you to a deeper understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare's work.

This edition of As You Like It provides:

• A clear and authoritative text, edited to the highest standards of scholarship.
• Detailed notes and commentary on the same page as the text.
• A full, illustrated introduction to the play's historical, cultural and performance contexts.
• An in-depth survey of critical approaches to the play.
• A full index to the introduction and notes
• A select bibliography of references and further reading.

With a wealth of helpful and incisive commentary, The Arden Shakespeare is the finest edition of Shakespeare you can find.

About The Arden Shakespeare series
Arden Shakespeare is the most academically rigorous Shakespeare series in print, and the best-known English literature brand worldwide. In 1995 the Third Series of The Arden Shakespeare was launched. Now published under the imprint Arden Shakespeare, under the General Editorship of Richard Proudfoot, Ann Thompson, David Scott Kastan and Henry Woudhuysen, the Arden Shakespeare Third Series is nearing completion. Each new volume supersedes the corresponding Second Series text, being meticulously edited from the original sources by a contemporary scholar.

Contents

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List of Illustrations General Editors' Preface  The Text  Commentary and Textual Notes  Introduction Preface Introduction  A brief view of the play  Fictions of gender   Rosalind and the boy actor   Later Rosalinds   Celia   Orlando   Phoebe and Audrey  Date  The Forest of Arden   'Well, this is the Forest of Arden'   The hunt   Robin Hood and his merry men   Staging the Forest of Arden  Early foresters   The Earl of Essex   Thomas Morley  Realms of gold   Shakespeare and Thomas Lodge   Shakespeare and Sidney   Harington, Ariosto and Rabelais   Golden worlds  Pastoral   Genre: entertainments for Elizabeth   Corin and Touchstone   Borderlands: love and politics   A wise man and a fool: Jaques and Touchstone  'A speaking picture': readers and painters  Text   The staying order   The Folio text: provenance and editorial practices   Text and performance  Epilogue: 'All the world's a stage' As You Like It Appendix 1: A court epilogue, Shrovetide 1599 Appendix 2: Casting and doubling Appendix 3: Ben Jonson, As You Like It and the 'War of the Theatres' Appendix 4: The Douai manuscript Appendix 5: Political after-lives: Veracini's opera Rosalinda (1744) and Charles Johnson's Love in a Forest (1723) Abbreviations and references Index