As You Like It

As You Like It is William Shakespeare's comedy of exile and courtship, set largely in the Forest of Arden. Rosalind, banished from her uncle's court, travels with Celia and adopts the disguise of Ganymede. Her meetings with Orlando turn the conventions of romantic devotion into a playful test of what lovers say and understand. Other voices, including the melancholy Jaques and the fool Touchstone, complicate the promise of rural freedom. The movement toward reconciliation gives friendship and forgiveness a place beside the wit of disguise, while the play's songs and changing perspectives keep pastoral life from becoming a simple escape from human difficulty.