Unit 12- Social & Cultural- As you like it.

As You Like It was expected to have been written between the 1598s and 1600s. It was in fact entered in the Stationers' Register on August 4th, 1600 nevertheless no edition followed the entry, therefore leading to the uncertainty of the publication date. Two contemporary references have been used by scholars to claim 1599 as the date of writing, but even this is the conclusion only. For instance, Francis Meres, a contemporary of Shakespeare, listed the plays known to him in September of 1598 and did not include As You Like It amongst them. The first known publication is in the 1623 which indeed is the First Folio, taken either from Shakespeare's prompt-book or less likely from a literary transcript of the prompt-book.

The origin for the plot of As You Like It is derived from Thomas Lodge's prose romance Rosalynde. Shakespeare knew the story quite well although he changed a great deal of the details and emphasised different things. Lodge, for example, did not have ducal brothers, Shakespeare chose to make hatred between brothers vital to the theme of the play. Shakespeare also chooses to make inheritance a target of his criticism by allowing Oliver to acquire everything, whereas Lodge had an equal inheritance between the brothers in his version. The clown Touchstone and Jaques are also both creations of Shakespeare.

The Forest of Arden is from Lodge's romance, and essentially describes an ancient woodland comprising parts of France, Belgium and Luxembourg. Shakespeare used the French setting through his choice of the French setting, "Arden". However, the First Folio indicates another spelling, namely the Forest of Arden, an Anglicized spelling that also corresponds to a forest near Shakespeare's birthplace in Warwickshire. This coincidence is indicative of the doubleness in the play; although set in a foreign kingdom.
The story of Orlando and Oliver comes from another source, that of The Tale of Gamelyn, a Middle English story of which a younger brother seeks revenge on an older brother who mistreats him. This story has to do with Robin Hood, the famous English outlaw who lived near Nottingham and poached the king's deer. Indeed, the opening scenes of As You Like It is basically the image of Robin Hood when Charles the Wrestler describes Duke Senior as a modern day Robin Hood with his band of nobles around him.
 The play actually takes place in a forest where the characters are hiding from treachery at court or injustice in the family. This pastoral tradition began with Theocrites in ancient Greece, whose writings explored the sorrows of love and daily injustices in a rural setting.
The pastoral tradition, in spite of taking many literary forms, conformed to a traditional set of rules. A typical story would involve exiles from the court or city going into the countryside and living either with or as shepherds. While in the rural area, they would hold singing contests and philosophically discuss the various merits of both forms of life. Eventually the exiles would return to the city having resolved their particular problems.
Pastoral works have frequently been used as social criticisms due to their ability to question the natural world versus the artificial man-made world. The characters often discuss whether life in the country is preferable to that of the city, usually focusing on such evils as cruel mistresses or the dishonesty of courtiers for themes. The simplicity of the countryside is always celebrated in a highly artful manner, imitating the Western literary tradition as it has gradually developed over time. Indeed, the pastoral genre provides authors with a way to pretend; the characters immerse themselves in another world and can act out their ideal worlds. Thus in this "simplistic world" we see many disguises where courtiers pretend to be shepherds, men dress as women, women dress as men, and nobles become outlaws. The pastoral world gives its cast an opportunity to alter their own world when they return through the games they play in this contrived, imaginary location.
The forest of Arden where the characters all end up, turns out to be very similar to other forests: it causes fear through the wild animals but provides the right atmosphere for healing to occur. This corresponds closely to the forest in A Midsummer Night's Dream where most of the action occurs before the cast returns to Athens with their problems resolved. Indeed, after hunting deer, tending sheep, singing songs and writing love sonnets on bark, most of the cast in this play returns home again with all their problems solved.