Readers and audiences have long greeted As You Like It with delight.
The authoritative edition of As You Like It from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers, includes: -Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play -Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play -Scene-by-scene plot summaries -A key to the play\'s famous lines and phrases -An introduction to reading Shakespeare\'s language -An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play -Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library\'s vast holdings of rare books -An annotated guide to further reading Essay by Susan Snyder The Folger Shakespeare Library in.
In other words, a boy played a girl playing a boy pretending to be a girl.
But as the epilogue reveals, the sixteenth-century actor playing Rosalind was male, following the practice of the time.
Most of Orlando\'s courtship of Rosalind takes place while Rosalind is disguised as a man, ``Ganymede.`` At her urging, Orlando pretends that Ganymede is his beloved Rosalind.
Another perspective concerns cross-dressing.
As You Like It depicts intense conflict between brothers, exposing the human suffering that primogeniture entails.
These include primogeniture, passing property from a father to his oldest son.
Recent scholars have also grounded the play in the issues of its time.
Orlando, whose older brother Oliver plotted his death, has fled there, too.
Duke Frederick, younger brother to Duke Senior, has overthrown his brother and forced him to live homeless in the forest with his courtiers, including the cynical Jaques.
Soon after Rosalind and Orlando meet and fall in love, the princesses and Touchstone go into exile in the Forest of Arden, where they find new conversational partners.
Its characters are brilliant conversationalists, including the princesses Rosalind and Celia and their Fool, Touchstone.
Readers and audiences have long greeted As You Like It with delight
