[Barnet presents a succinct overview of As You Like It in relation to Much Ado about Nothing and Twelfth Night, Shakespeare's other festive comedies. In this excerpt, the critic explores the contrasting elements of the court and Arden for est, relates the various implications that the courtships of Orlando and Rosalind, Oliver and Celia, Silvius and Phebe, and Touchstone and Audrey have on the whole play, and surveys the theme of redemption through the characters' gradual self-knowledge. especially the improbable conversions of Oliver and Duke Frederick. This essay has been reprinted in Four Great Comedies (J 982) by Sylvan Barnet]

Near the turn of the [seventeenth] century-just after he had finished his second tetralogy of history plays and was nearing the great tragedies-Shakespeare wrote three comedies that for many readers and spectators are the essence of Shakespearean romantic comedy: Much Ado About Nothing (1598-1600), As You Like It...