Home > Shakespearean Criticism > As You Like It (Vol. 90) - Nathaniel Strout (essay date spring 2001)

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Nathaniel Strout (essay date spring 2001)

SOURCE: Strout, Nathaniel. “As You Like It, Rosalynde, and Mutuality.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 41, no. 2 (spring 2001): 277-95.

[In the following essay, Strout maintains that in As You Like It Shakespeare advocated the concept of mutuality through his characters' expressions of love and through the choices that they make. The critic contrasts this notion of mutuality with Thomas Lodge's Rosalynde (1590), which reinforces a patriarchal order based on rigid, absolute human behavior.]

Over the years, critics have noted a variety of thematic oppositions in As You Like It: fortune versus nature, country versus court, a view of time “as the medium of decay” versus time “as the medium of fulfillment,” “contrary notions of identity,” “the conspicuous narrative artifice of the opening scenes” versus the “equally prominent theatrical...

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1. Introduction
2. Criticism: Overviews And General Studies
   1. Ruth Nevo (essay date 1980)
   2. Linda Woodbridge (essay date 2004)
3. Criticism: Character Studies
   1. Robert B. Bennett (essay date 1976)
   2. Clare R. Kinney (essay date February 1998)
   3. Sharon Hamilton (essay date 2003)
4. Criticism: Production Reviews
   1. Ben Brantley (review date 9 August 1999)
   2. Brendan Lemon (review date 16 August 1999)
   3. Alastair Macaulay (review date 3 April 2000)
   4. Ian Shuttleworth (review date 5 January 2001)
   5. Patrick Carnegy (review date 29 March 2003)
   6. Katherine Duncan-Jones (review date 4 April 2003)
   7. Alastair Macaulay (review date 20 August 2003)
5. Criticism: Themes
   1. Michael Shapiro (essay date 1994)
   2. Nathaniel Strout (essay date spring 2001)
   3. Peter Milward (essay date 2001)
6. Further Reading
7. Copyright