Synopses & Reviews
As You Like It is Shakespeare's most light-hearted comedy and one of the best-loved and most performed of all his plays. In his introduction to this new edition Alan Brissenden suggests reasons for its delayed publication and discusses in detail how productions have changed radically over the years. Shakespeare's use of his sources, his handling of the themes of love, doubleness, and pastoral are dealt with, as well as the significance of men playing women's parts on the Elizabethan stage. Detailed annotations explain allusions, puns, and difficult passages, enabling student, reader, actor, and director to savor the humor and the seriousness of the play to the full. There are illustrations, and appendices on "wit" and the songs, for which the earliest known music is printed.
Synopsis
With its witty heroine Rosalind, who has the longest role of Shakespeare's female characters, As You Like It is Shakespeare's most light-hearted and most performed comedy. This edition includes numerous illustrations of productions and reassesses both its textual and performance history, showing how interpretations have changed since the first recorded production in 1740. It also examines Shakespeare's sources and elucidates the central themes of love, pastoral, and doubleness, and provides detailed annotations investigating the play's allusive and often bawdy language.
About the Author
Alan Brissenden is Reader in English, University of Adelaide, Australia.