William Shakespeare - As You Like It

THE NEW CAMBRIDGE SHAKESPEARE

GENERAL EDITOR

Brian Gibbons

ASSOCIATE GENERAL EDITOR

A. R. Braunmuller, University of California, Los Angeles

From the publication of the first volumes in 1984 the General Editor of the New Cambridge Shakespeare was Philip Brockbank and the Associate General Editors were Brian Gibbons and Robin Hood. From 1990 to 1994 the General Editor was Brian Gibbons and the Associate General Editors were A. R. Braunmuller and Robin Hood.

AS YOU LIKE IT

Shakespeares As You Like It can appear bright or sombre in performance: a feast of language and a delight for comic actors; or a risk-taking exploration of gender roles. An updated introduction provides an account of what makes this popular play both innocent and dangerous. There is a new section on recent critical, stage and film interpretations of the play, an updated reading list and a new appendix on a possible early court performance of As You Like It in 1599. Mapping the complexities of the plays setting a no-mans-land related to both France and England the edition also includes detailed commentary on its language and an analytical account of performance.

THE NEW CAMBRIDGE SHAKESPEARE

Alls Well That Ends Well, edited by Russell Fraser

Antony and Cleopatra, edited by David Bevington

As You Like It, edited by Michael Hattaway

The Comedy of Errors, edited by T. S. Dorsch

Coriolanus, edited by Lee Bliss

Cymbeline, edited by Martin Butler

Hamlet, edited by Philip Edwards

Julius Caesar, edited by Marvin Spevack

King Edward III, edited by Giorgio Melchiori

The First Part of King Henry IV, edited by Herbert Weil and Judith Weil

The Second Part of King Henry IV, edited by Giorgio Melchiori

King Henry V, edited by Andrew Gurr

The First Part of King Henry VI, edited by Michael Hattaway

The Second Part of King Henry VI, edited by Michael Hattaway

The Third Part of King Henry VI, edited by Michael Hattaway

King Henry VIII, edited by John Margeson

King John, edited by L. A. Beaurline

The Tragedy of King Lear, edited by Jay L. Halio

King Richard II, edited by Andrew Gurr

King Richard III, edited by Janis Lull

Loves Labours Lost, edited by William C. Carroll

Macbeth, edited by A. R. Braunmuller

Measure for Measure, edited by Brian Gibbons

The Merchant of Venice, edited by M. M. Mahood

The Merry Wives of Windsor, edited by David Crane

A Midsummer Nights Dream, edited by R. A. Foakes

Much Ado About Nothing, edited by F. H. Mares

Othello, edited by Norman Sanders

Pericles, edited by Doreen DelVecchio and Antony Hammond

The Poems, edited by John Roe

Romeo and Juliet, edited by G. Blakemore Evans

The Sonnets, edited by G. Blakemore Evans

The Taming of the Shrew, edited by Ann Thompson

The Tempest, edited by David Lindley

Timon of Athens, edited by Karl Klein

Titus Andronicus, edited by Alan Hughes

Troilus and Cressida, edited by Anthony B. Dawson

Twelfth Night, edited by Elizabeth Story Donno

The Two Gentlemen of Verona, edited by Kurt Schlueter

The Two Noble Kinsmen, edited by Robert Kean Turner and Patricia Tatspaugh

The Winters Tale, edited by Susan Snyder and Deborah T. Curren-Aquino

THE EARLY QUARTOS

The First Quarto of Hamlet, edited by Kathleen O. Irace

The First Quarto of King Henry V, edited by Andrew Gurr

The First Quarto of King Lear, edited by Jay L. Halio

The First Quarto of King Richard III, edited by Peter Davison

The First Quarto of Othello, edited by Scott McMillin

The First Quarto of Romeo and Juliet, edited by Lukas Erne

The Taming of a Shrew: The 1594 Quarto, edited by Stephen Roy Miller

AS YOU LIKE IT

Updated edition

Edited by

MICHAEL HATTAWAY

Professor of English, New York University in London

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town,
Singapore, So Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City

Cambridge University Press

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org

Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521519748

Cambridge University Press 2000, 2009

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2000

Updated edition 2009

Reprinted 2011

5th printing 2013

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CRO 4YY

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data

Shakespeare, William, 15641616.

As you like it / edited by Michael Hattway. Updated ed.

p. cm. (The new Cambridge Shakespeare)

Include bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-521-51974-8

1. Fathers and daughters Drama. 2. Exiles Drama. 3. Shakespeare, William, 15641616.

As you like it. I. Hattaway, Michael. II. Title.

PR2803.A2H35 2009

822.33 dc22 2009025024

ISBN 978-0-521-51974-8 Hardback

ISBN 978-0-521-73250-5 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

CONTENTS

Appendixes:

ILLUSTRATIONS

Illustration 1 is reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon; 2, 3, 7 are reproduced by permission of the British Library; 4 by permission of the Marquess of Tavistock and the Trustees of the Bedford Estate; 5 by permission of the Duke of Devonshire and the Chatsworth Settlement Trustees (photograph by Photographic Survey, Courtauld Institute of Art); 6 by permission of Sheffield Theatres (photograph by Gerry Murray); 8, 9, 11 (photograph by Angus McBean), 12 (photograph by Zoe Dominic), 13, 14 (photographs by Joe Cocks) by permission of the Shakespeare Centre Library, Stratford-upon-Avon; 10 by permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library; 15 by permission of Cheek by Jowl (photograph by John Haynes); 16 by permission of Shakespeares Globe (photograph by Donald Cooper); 17 by permission of HBO and Kenneth Branagh.

PREFACE TO THE UPDATED EDITION

The popularity of As You Like It over the last 260 years has generated a myriad of productions. There are not as many editors, but their accumulated industry means that each successor can make only a modest contribution to what has been revealed and explained. It is therefore appropriate to begin with a tribute to my predecessors, especially H. H. Furness, whose acute common sense shines through the verbosities that convention dictated he transcribe in the notes to the first New Variorum edition (1890), to his successor, Richard Knowles, whose revised work in the same series (1977) is magnificently full, sagacious, and accurate, to Alan Brissenden, who generously offered encouragement just after his own Oxford edition had appeared (1993), and to Juliet Dusinberre whose Arden 3 edition (2006) prompted a deal of revision in this second edition (see, especially, Appendix ). This volume is supported by recent encyclopaedic works of reference: Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor,