5 Stars for As You Like It

This is my first Shakespeare comedy, at least reading it straight through. First, I picked it up to read, because the school I teach at has a number of these books in the classroom. Books are certainly a luxury at my school. Second, I've been teaching Othello the past few years along with The Crucible, and The Great Gatsby, so I needed an uplift, something I knew would end well. Last, the premise of this particular comedy drew me in because it appealed to a theme of rediscovery of oneself especially when the idea of home is lost. In this play, the main love birds Orlando and Rosalind are banished. Sure they fall in love all Romeo and Juliet style, but unlike the star-crossed lovers they have to discover an inner strength accepting a new home and a new life unlike the wealthy one they have been accustomed. This theme of acceptance and self-discovery lends itself to the young person leaving home and embarking upon the forest of Arden/college/workforce/etc.

After reading this silly play, I found a number of reasons to recommend it...

1. It will make you laugh out loud. The scenes between Rosalind as Ganymede and Orlando were absurdly silly to the point of belly aching laughter.

Rosalind: (dressed as the man Ganymede)"What would you say to me now, an I were your very, very Rosalind?"
Orlando: "I would kiss before I spoke."
Rosalind (dressed as the man Ganymede): "Nay, you were better speak first..."

2. Memorable lines I now know the origin of:

"no sooner looked but they loved; no sooner love but they sighed; no sooner sighed but they asked each other the reason..."
"All the world's a stage, And all the women and men merely players."

3. Touchstone: An Aristotle clown.

On the lie of good manners: "All of these you may avoid but the lie direct; and you may avoid that too, with an 'If'."

4. Rosalind: The woman mastermind behind the inevitable happy ending. She is brilliantly clever. Her character is one of the reasons Shakespeare was ahead of his time with ideas of feminism. Plus, as mentioned previously I could not read about Desdemona's outcome under the tragic Othello again. My heart couldn't take it.

There are many other reasons to recommend this play, but these stand out the most to me.