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Why does a comedy about love begin with hate—brotherly hate—that dominates the first half of the drama? As You Like It is all about love: romantic love, brotherly love, platonic love, unrequited love, sexual desire [love?], friendship. Yet, this comedy not only begins with hatred and violence, but ends with some characters refusing to join in the play’s comic resolution. That’s part of what makes Shakespeare great: he insists that drama include an ample dose of reality to temper idealistic fantasies. Part of that reality is embedded in Jacques’ famous “All the world’s a stage….” Written at the apex of Shakespeare’s dramatic power, As You Like It is one of his most popular and important plays.
Arlene Okerlund, Ph.D., Professor Emerita of English at San Jose State University, specializes in Shakespeare and in Medieval/Renaissance studies. She twice taught in SJSU’s Semester-Abroad-in England where she loved studying Shakespeare and English history on site. During retirement, she has published biographies of England’s first Yorkist queen, Elizabeth Wydeville, in Elizabeth: England’s Slandered Queen, and the first Tudor queen (mother of Henry VIII), in Elizabeth of York.
