SOURCE: Brissenden, Alan. Introduction to The Oxford Shakespeare: As You Like It, edited by Alan Brissenden, pp. 1-86. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.

In the following excerpt, Brissenden surveys theme and character in As You Like It, concentrating on motifs of love, transformation, and doubling.

Love

Love is associated with Rosalind from the beginning, when she suggests falling in love as a game that might make her merry (1.2.23), and Celia warns that she must be careful to ‘love no man in good earnest’, nor go so far that she cannot escape the situation without losing her honour. But, grieving for her father, Rosalind is in an emotionally receptive state when Orlando arrives to wrestle with Charles, and whereas in the first part of the scene Celia has been the initiator of dialogue, it is Rosalind who takes charge of the conversation when Orlando appears. Before and throughout the wrestling match...