As You Like It – A. J. Drake's Shakespeare Site

Questions on
Shakespeare’s Comedies

Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. (The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies, 3rd ed. 673-731.)

ACT 1

1. In Act 1, Scene 1, the first words we hear come from the deeply dissatisfied Orlando, who airs his grievances against his elder brother, Oliver. What are those grievances—in what ways has Orlando abused Orlando and deprived him of his rights as a son of Sir Rowland de Boys and, more broadly, as a human being?

2. In Act 1, Scene 1, how does Oliver respond to Orlando’s complaints against him? What counter-argument (weak though it is) does he pose against his younger brother’s earnest criticisms and demands? What opportunity for “payback” opens up for Oliver when the powerful wrestler Charles enters the picture?

3. In Act 1, Scene 1, it’s clear that the primogeniture system (wherein the eldest son inherits the father’s title and estate) is the enabling factor in Oliver’s mistreatment of his junior brother, Orlando. How does that system “script” the hostility between the two brothers? How—i.e., to what extent, if at all—does Oliver understand the dislike he feels for Orlando? When he’s alone, what does Oliver say about Orlando and about his own hostility against this virtuous younger brother?

4. In Act 1, Scene 2, how does the relationship between Rosalind and Celia contrast with the relationship we observed between Oliver and Orlando in the first scene? In addition to their blood or kinship relation, what seems to be the basis of the two young women’s friendship? (As for blood relation, they are cousins—Rosalind is the daughter of the exiled Duke Senior, brother of Celia’s father, the usurper Duke Frederick.)

5. In Act 1, Scene 2, what do Rosalind and Celia suggest about the benefit of courtly “fools” such as the Clown (often called “Touchstone”)? How does he improve the non-fools with whom he comes into contact? In this regard, what does the Clown’s presence in this scene add to our introduction to Rosalind and Celia? Moreover, what is the point of his amusing anecdote about the knight who swore that some pancakes he ate were good, but that the topping (the “mustard”) was “naught”?

6. In Act 1, Scene 2, how does the text describe the beginning of Rosalind and Orlando’s love for each other? How does the wrestling match between Orlando and the Duke’s man Charles figure in this process, and to what extent should we analogize this contest to love as a struggle or contest? In addition, why is Orlando—although clearly an excellent wrestler—so unable to respond to Rosalind’s obvious expressions of romantic interest in him?

7. In Act 1, Scene 3, Duke Frederick, who in the previous scene had fumed about a son of Sir Rowland de Bois winning a sporting match in his presence, imperiously banishes Rosalind from his court. What is his reason for doing this — what Machiavellian political logic does he urge upon Celia to justify his decision to banish her dearest friend? How does Celia respond to her father’s analysis and decision? How credible or serious does the threat presented by the Duke seem at this point?

8. In Act 1, Scene 3, what plan do Rosalind and Celia devise to escape the wrath of Duke Frederick? Why does Rosalind decide that disguising herself as a young man would be best? What is the significance of the particular male name Rosalind takes, namely Ganymede? Look up this figure on theoi.com or some other classical mythology site. What name and identity does Celia, for her part, take upon herself?

ACT 2

9. In Act 2, Scene 1, what value does Duke Senior tell his companions he sees in the adversity he and they face daily as well as the “lessons” that nature and its creatures can teach them? In what sense do his comments invoke the theological notion that nature is one of God’s “books” that people may read and learn from?

10. Act 2, Scene 1 references both Duke Senior’s observations on the suffering of an arrow-wounded deer and the observations of the melancholy Jacques on the same topic. What differences may be noted between the Duke’s observations on the deer and the manner in which Jacques responds to the topic? Consider the two men’s responses in both their intellectual and emotional dimensions.

11. In Act 2, Scenes 3, 6, and 7, how does Adam both assist and burden Orlando? What is the significance of Adam’s biblical name in the context of the old servant’s relationship to Orlando? (In responding, consider that in Genesis, Adam and Eve are the parents of Cain and Abel, the former of whom murdered his upright younger brother.) While some readers may be tempted by Scene 6 to cast Adam as entering his “second childishness” (the final stage of life in Jacques’s “Seven Ages of Man” in Act 2, Scene 7), at what points does the text of As You Like It undermine such an interpretation?

12. In Act 2, Scene 4, we are introduced to the shepherds Corin and Silvius, characters rather similar to the ones in classical poetry such as the Idylls of Theocritus or Virgil’s Eclogues. Firstly, what impression does Scene 4 give us of the Forest of Arden? At this point in the play, how close is the Forest to being an idyllic pastoral space or “green world”? What concerns beset Silvius and his older colleague Corin? Why is Rosalind (disguised as Ganymede) so drawn to these shepherds and the land they tend?

13. In Act 2, Scenes 5 and 7, the melancholy Jacques is at his finest. In Scene 5, how does he poke fun at Amiens’s comforting songs about living naturally? In Scene 7, why is he so impressed with the conversation he and the Clown (Touchstone) have just had? As for Jacques’ description of the Seven Ages of Man beginning, “All the world’s a stage” (Scene 7, lines 139-66), how much faith should we put in these characterizations—is Jacques’ perspective on life’s stages trustworthy? What is the value of his brooding in an otherwise mostly sunny play?

ACT 3

14. In Act 3, Scene 2, Touchstone engages Corin the shepherd in a debate over the relative merits of court and country life. How does Touchstone assess the life shepherds lead and the “manners” they exhibit? How does Corin respond to Touchstone’s arguments against his way of life and his outlook? Does one speaker or the other “win” this debate about court and countryside decorum, or is that not really the point? Explain.

15. Act 3, Scene 2 is structured around a series of pairings between key characters: Touchstone and Corin, Touchstone and Rosalind, Celia and Rosalind, Orlando and Jacques, and — most significantly — Orlando and Rosalind. Examine this last pairing: what are the content and style of the dialog that Rosalind (as “Ganymede”) engages in with the “love-shaked” (336) Orlando? What cure does Rosalind offer for Orlando’s passion? What is the value of such play-acting and dialog on the subject of courtship?

16. Act 3, Scene 2 is structured around a series of pairings, as mentioned in the preceding question. Choose any pair of dialog partners except Orlando and Rosalind and discuss the significance of their conversation in light of the play’s main themes or interests as appropriate (country versus court life; romantic love, courtship, and the role of gender; and so forth). What does the conversation you choose to examine teach the characters and, perhaps, us about the relative topic or theme?

17. In Act 3, Scene 3, the Clown (Touchstone) determines to marry the shepherdess Audrey, and his conversation with her makes yet another pairing of diverse characters. What is the basis of the courtly Clown’s match with Audrey? In what ways are they similar, and what are their differences? How might they be a good match, in spite of the gap in understanding that divides them? Moreover, why does the Clown prefer that the marriage be officiated by Sir Oliver Martext, and what is Jacques’s purpose in intruding on the deliberations?

18. In Act 3, Scenes 4-5, Rosalind and Celia hide, and overhear poor Silvius courting the shepherdess Phoebe. What does Rosalind expect to be her reward for eavesdropping—what will she learn? What role does she play when she directly intervenes in the scene that Corin had called “a pageant truly played / Between the pale complexion of true love / And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain” (710, 3.4.46-48)? What advice does she offer Silvius’s beloved, the haughty Phoebe? What is the net effect of that advice?

ACT 4

19. In Act 4, Scene 1, Rosalind meets and spars with Jacques while she is waiting for Orlando to show up for his courtship lesson. How does Jacques describe the benefits of his detached, melancholy outlook on life to Rosalind? What refutation of that outlook does she offer? Do you take her dismissive words as definitive regarding Jacques’ presence in the play? Why or why not?

20. In Act 4, Scene 1, Rosalind (as Ganymede playing Rosalind, that is) schools Orlando in female ways and wiles. What does she say along these lines—what habits and temperament does she attribute to women? Once Orlando is gone, what does Rosalind confess to Celia about her true feelings for Orlando? Why is she keeping up this disguise—what is to be gained from drawing out these make-believe sessions about courtship? How well is Orlando doing as a student in such matters so far?

21. In Act 4, Scene 3, Phoebe’s chiding letter arrives in the hand of Silvius, and Orlando’s brother Oliver makes his entrance in Arden. How does Oliver explain his sudden conversion from one of the play’s two villains into Orlando’s benign messenger? What is the symbolic significance of the dreamlike scene in which Orlando rescues the sleeping Oliver from a green “gilded snake” (107) and a hungry lioness? How does Oliver know “Ganymede” is not male, and what seems to be his attitude towards Rosalind’s acting the part of a young man?

ACT 5

22. In Act 5, Scene 1, the Clown (Touchstone) scares Audrey’s hapless rustic suitor William away from her. By what means, including both his words and physical gestures, does he accomplish this easy task? Why has Shakespeare situated such a brusque “courtship style” at this point in the play? What style does it contrast with?

23. In Act 5, Scene 2, Ganymede/Rosalind promises to sort out the play’s love matches by a kind of “magic.” But while Silvius and Phoebe, and Rosalind and Orlando, are still bound up by resistance and disguise, respectively, what ideal of love does Silvius set forth? To what extent is this view privileged in As You Like It? What does Rosalind’s refrain “And I for no woman” (724, 5.2.79ff) suggest in this light—how does he/she relate to the ideal Silvius has proclaimed?

24. In Act 5, Scene 3, two young boys (“Pages”) sing a song that begins “It was a lover and his lass” (725, 5.3.14-31). To what extent does this song relate to the coming resolution of the play or comment on what has gone before? In what way does at least one of the other songs in this play relate to the main action? Choose from among Amiens’s “Under the Greenwood Tree” and “Who doth ambition shun” along with Jacques’s comic overturning of it in 2.5; Amiens’s “Blow, blow, thou winter wind” in 2.7; the Second Lord’s “What shall he have?” in 4.2; or Hymen’s “Wedding is great Juno’s crown” in 5.4.

25. In Act 5, Scene 4, the Clown (Touchstone) explains how a courtly quarrel should proceed, basing his account on his own experience. How does this famous account (usually referred to as “Touchstone’s quarrel”) relate to the play’s exploration of love and courtship, as we await the resolution Rosalind has promised?

26. In Act 5, Scene 4, Hymen (the God of marriage) intervenes in the contentious human scene. What does Hymen decree for the four couples gathered? Why is it appropriate that he (and not Rosalind) should “bar confusion” and “make conclusion” (116-17) of the play’s events? What authority does Hymen have that Rosalind/Ganymede does not?

27. In Act 5, Scene 4, after Hymen has pronounced his lines, Jacques de Boyes (brother of Orlando and Oliver) informs everyone that Duke Frederick has (like Oliver earlier) been transformed from a villain into a good man and has decided to hand over his usurped powers to the rightful ruler, Duke Senior. How did this change take place? Why is Oliver and Frederick’s villainy so easily dispensed with in this comic play? What is the usual function of villains in a Shakespearean comedy?

28. General question: how might we compare this play’s comic resolution (the nature of it and the means by which it is achieved) to that of any one of Shakespeare’s other comedies that you have studied? For example, what makes As You Like It one of Shakespeare’s “sunnier” comedies, unlike, say, Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice, or All’s Well That Ends Well?

Edition. Greenblatt, Stephen et al., editors. The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies + Digital Edition. 3rd ed. W. W. Norton, 2016. ISBN-13: 978-0-393-93861-6.

Document Timestamp: 10/31/2025 6:50 PM