You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.73 AVERAGE
3.73 AVERAGE
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Summary: This play tells the story of four romances that are blossoming amidst a time of political turmoil. The story features the usurping of a duke by younger brother, a wrestling match with a surprising, a couple of cases of concealed identities, and, as is common in Shakespearean comedies, a fool who offers some irreverent comic relief.
First Shakespeare comedy! I throughly enjoyed this! I appreciated Rosalind and Celia's relationship quite a bit. The dynamic Shakespeare creates between two young female characters feels genuine and, for the period of its creation, super progressive. I loved the usual tropes of all his plays placed throughout and I even enjoyed some of the more bitter characters, such as Jaques. Lots of memorable dialogue and monologues.
Not really a Shakespeare person, but I did enjoy this play more that I thought I would. I thought it was funny at times and easier to understand than others.
Oy, what a hotchpotch. Look, I get it: Shakespeare is deeply revered in a manner which is unique among all writers in the English language, and maybe I just don't get -- and may never get -- why that is. It's not just that I bear a grudge, as a present-day playwright, over the fact that a ludicrously disproportionate percentage of overall production budget is unyieldingly pissed away on productions of a writer who hasn't given us a new work in over four centuries. It is, after all, a bit of a slap in the face of those of us who struggle to bring new work to the stage. The fact that the "Suggested References" section with which this edition closes fills 14 pages and lists no less than 174 works on the subject of Shakespeare would seem to indicate an unwholesome obsession. I'm not opposed to the idea of paying reasonable homage to the past, but Shakespeare appears to have attracted the worship of a bona fide cult. (And, to be perfectly clear, I do like some of his work, such as "The Tempest" and "Othello," to name just two.)
The two most common arguments advanced as proof of Shakespeare's genius are his facility with language and his purportedly keen insight into the core fundamentals of human nature. As to the first of these, while his mastery of language, per se, is self-evident, from the perspective of 2021 it does not seem impertinent to ask which language he is master of, since the average reader (or theater-goer) requires a glossary in order to decipher words and phrases which have not fallen within the common parlance in, literally, centuries.
As to Shakespeare's insights into human nature, it would be an understatement to say that the ethos, mores, and world view which his collective body of work delineates has dated poorly. This is generally the case with "the classics," but when it comes to Shakespeare there is a certain willful obliviousness at work. (The fact that "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" is still produced anywhere is ample evidence of this fact.) Yes, Shakespeare did have keen insight into people, but into the people of his place and time. I, for one, am unable, more often than not, to see how Shakespeare's "human nature" aligns with my own.
All of that having been said, the specific play in question comes off as a bit of a platypus. I will grant that the writer, as was his wont, was basing his plot on the work of an earlier writer. (This edition very helpfully reprints about a third of that source, Thomas Lodge's "Rosalynde.") So we might blame this problem -- the seeming arbitrariness of elements which make up the story here -- to Lodge (who, it should be noted was, in turn, working from yet earlier sources). But Shakespeare is the one who chose to take this source and bring it to the stage. In short, the play is all over the map, and despite the apologetics of various scholars on this point, to the humble reader who is supposed to carry something away from this work, it's hard to see why some of these plot threads exist at all (e.g., the episode involving Martext). The play feels padded, as if it had been written in haste. And although it has been argued that plot should rightly be considered secondary in evaluating the qualities of Shakespeare's work, perhaps it would be more to the point to simply admit that he was not much of a master when it came to plot. Plot matters. In any other writer, Shakespeare's habitual ineptitude in this area would certainly be excoriated. Even Beethoven has taken it on the chin for being a poor melodist, so why should Shakespeare be exempt?
Perhaps the best support in defense of my criticisms comes from this edition itself: Shakespeare's text fills 104 of its 302 pages, or just under 35%. The rest is largely made up of a collection of scholarly essays on Shakespeare in general, and this play specifically. I found Helen Gardner's 19-page appreciation (simply entitled "As You Like It") to be particularly revealing in this regard. The writer very clearly takes it as gospel that everything Shakespeare wrote is of incomparable quality, and tailors her observations around this premise, as opposed to bringing even the slightest hint of objectivity to her reflections; she comes off as a gushing fan, not as an impartial scholar. But so it is with the Bard, and so it shall ever be, a long-dead playwright continuing to suck up all the oxygen in the room. And I will content myself with remaining among the very small minority of vociferous dissenters who attempt to describe the Emperor's new clothes in all frankness and honesty.
The two most common arguments advanced as proof of Shakespeare's genius are his facility with language and his purportedly keen insight into the core fundamentals of human nature. As to the first of these, while his mastery of language, per se, is self-evident, from the perspective of 2021 it does not seem impertinent to ask which language he is master of, since the average reader (or theater-goer) requires a glossary in order to decipher words and phrases which have not fallen within the common parlance in, literally, centuries.
As to Shakespeare's insights into human nature, it would be an understatement to say that the ethos, mores, and world view which his collective body of work delineates has dated poorly. This is generally the case with "the classics," but when it comes to Shakespeare there is a certain willful obliviousness at work. (The fact that "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" is still produced anywhere is ample evidence of this fact.) Yes, Shakespeare did have keen insight into people, but into the people of his place and time. I, for one, am unable, more often than not, to see how Shakespeare's "human nature" aligns with my own.
All of that having been said, the specific play in question comes off as a bit of a platypus. I will grant that the writer, as was his wont, was basing his plot on the work of an earlier writer. (This edition very helpfully reprints about a third of that source, Thomas Lodge's "Rosalynde.") So we might blame this problem -- the seeming arbitrariness of elements which make up the story here -- to Lodge (who, it should be noted was, in turn, working from yet earlier sources). But Shakespeare is the one who chose to take this source and bring it to the stage. In short, the play is all over the map, and despite the apologetics of various scholars on this point, to the humble reader who is supposed to carry something away from this work, it's hard to see why some of these plot threads exist at all (e.g., the episode involving Martext). The play feels padded, as if it had been written in haste. And although it has been argued that plot should rightly be considered secondary in evaluating the qualities of Shakespeare's work, perhaps it would be more to the point to simply admit that he was not much of a master when it came to plot. Plot matters. In any other writer, Shakespeare's habitual ineptitude in this area would certainly be excoriated. Even Beethoven has taken it on the chin for being a poor melodist, so why should Shakespeare be exempt?
Perhaps the best support in defense of my criticisms comes from this edition itself: Shakespeare's text fills 104 of its 302 pages, or just under 35%. The rest is largely made up of a collection of scholarly essays on Shakespeare in general, and this play specifically. I found Helen Gardner's 19-page appreciation (simply entitled "As You Like It") to be particularly revealing in this regard. The writer very clearly takes it as gospel that everything Shakespeare wrote is of incomparable quality, and tailors her observations around this premise, as opposed to bringing even the slightest hint of objectivity to her reflections; she comes off as a gushing fan, not as an impartial scholar. But so it is with the Bard, and so it shall ever be, a long-dead playwright continuing to suck up all the oxygen in the room. And I will content myself with remaining among the very small minority of vociferous dissenters who attempt to describe the Emperor's new clothes in all frankness and honesty.
It would be disingenuous to call this a dry-run for Twelfth Night, despite the shared conceit which in Twelfth Night is better realized and even more queer, and that Twelfth Night has stronger and more diverse subplots--because As You Like It is strong in its own right: the transformative forest, always a pleasure in Shakespeare and here at its purest and most literal; the tension between the freedoms of the forest and the pressures of external reality, and the parallel interrogation of romance. For me this is most interesting in conjunction with other Shakespeare plays and isn't on its own a personal favorite, but it's an absolute pleasure.
Shakespeare ALWAYS better in theater form so I give this five stars with the clarification that it isn't for ease of reading or on-paper entertainment value. I just love this play as a play and think Shakespeare was brilliant even though his language is sometimes so far-fetched and hard to understand.
Although I don't tend to enjoy Shakespeare's comedies as much as his historical plays and tragedies (the latter two often being one and the same), I do think this one's pretty special. Not only does it feature many of the Bard's most oft-quoted lines ("all the world's a stage..."), but the mistaken-identity plotting feels much less contrived than it has in some of his other works.
To say that aspects of this feel strikingly modern is just another way of saying that it's proven to be extremely influential, but I do think there's something to the "modernity" of it all with regards to elements such as the fourth-wall-breaking epilogue and the heightened wit in the implementation of some of Shakespeare's more tried and true narrative contrivances. As just one example, the play wraps up with a resolution that's so comically swift it simply has to have been designed that way on purpose.
To say that aspects of this feel strikingly modern is just another way of saying that it's proven to be extremely influential, but I do think there's something to the "modernity" of it all with regards to elements such as the fourth-wall-breaking epilogue and the heightened wit in the implementation of some of Shakespeare's more tried and true narrative contrivances. As just one example, the play wraps up with a resolution that's so comically swift it simply has to have been designed that way on purpose.
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
funny
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No