As You Like It | Alliance of Seriousness and Levity in As You Like It
In this brief excerpt, Cesar Lombardi Barber discusses the structure of As You Like It and the purpose of the joyful Forest of Arden.
(From Shakespeare's Festive Comedy by Cesar Lombardi Barber. © 1980 Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
In a true piece of Wit all things must be,
Yet all things there agree.
—Cowley, quoted by T. S. Eliot in "Andrew Marvell."
SHAKESPEARE's next venture in comedy after The Merchant of Venice was probably in the Henry IV plays, which were probably written in 1597-98. Thus the...Then is there mirth in heaven,
When earthly things made even
Atone together.
—As You Like It
[The entire page is 634 words long]
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