As You Like It Context

Song

is used to set a festive spirit

What characters from Shakespeare’s comedies are torn from their homes in city / court?

MSND- Hermia and Lysander / Two Gentlemen of Verona- Valentine

Gender gymnastics

In Elizabethean theatre, boys played the roles of women

Link between Rosalind and who? (gender)

Viola (Twelfth Night) → V disguises herself as a boy, Cesario, but whereas Rosalind becomes emboldened by her disguise, Viola becomes rueful and meditative

Touchstone is what stock character?

The clever fool, similar to Feste (Twelfth Night)

Romantic heroes are…

Often overshadowed by heroines eg Lysander

Rosalind and Celia must be separated like who?

Hermia and Helena (MSND)

What is primogeniture?

The oldest brother inherits the fortune

What is paterfamilias?

There is one male head of household

What was Shakespeare largely influenced by?

The pastoral romance tradition

Juliet Dusinberre

His play acknowledges the realities of the Elizabethean court

John Russell Brown

A play which is light footed, full of gaiety and warmth and confidence in humanity

Samuel Johnson

Of this play the fable is wild and pleasing

Draper

Wooing is the preliminary to marriage… it is the consummation of love between a woman and a man

Clare Calvo

Is it really Rosalind who moves the play?

John Kerry

Rosalind… stands out as perhaps the greatest diplomat in all literature

James Smith

an incomplete character