As You Like It (Wordsworth Classics) - Softcover

Shakespeare, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853260592 ISBN 13: 9781853260599

Publisher: Wordsworth Editions, 1993

Synopsis

This Wordsworth Edition includes an exclusive Introduction and Notes by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex.

As You Like It is one of Shakespeares finest romantic comedies, variously lyrical, melancholy, satiric, comic and absurd. Its boldly implausible plot generates a profusion of love-lorn men, a resourceful heroine in disguise, sexual ambiguity, sceptical philosophising, and finally a multiplicity of marriages. The ironic medley of pastoral artifice, romantic ardour and quizzical reflection has helped to make As You Like It perennially popular in the theatre. A recent production was deemed fresh, funny, sexy and, when it matters, deeply touching. As You Like It is part of the Wordsworth Classics Shakespeare Series, used in the workshops of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Every volume in the series has been newly edited by Cedric Watts, described by Edward Said as a man for whom the enjoyment and enrichment of friends and students is the main consideration in what he does.

About this title

Review:

As You Like It has long been admired as one of Shakespeare's most exuberant early comedies, complete with one of the Bard's funniest and toughest heroines, Rosalind. Based on Thomas Lodge's Elizabethan novel Rosalynde, As You Like It follows the discontented Orlando as he is exiled from the tyrannical French court of Duke Frederick. By chance Frederick also banishes Rosalind, daughter of the usurped Duke Senior. The play then moves to the Forest of Arden, where chaos and misrule ensue, as Rosalind cross dresses "all points like a man", disguised as the saucy Ganymede and encourages the naive Orlando to "woo me, woo me, for now I am in a holiday humour". Meanwhile her clown Touchstone causes hilarity and havoc amongst the exiled lords and the pastoral inhabitants of the forest. The play concludes with Rosalind's extraordinary "unmasking" Epilogue addressed to the audience, where she offers to "kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me".

As You Like It remains one of Shakespeare's most popular comedies, yet it is also appreciated by critics for its complex exploration of cross dressing and sexual politics, and its interest in relations between the country and the city. --Jerry Brotton

Review:

An excellent introduction to Shakespeare for the junior reader. --The School Librarian

About this edition

• Publisher: Wordsworth Editions
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 1853260592
• ISBN 13: 9781853260599
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128