As You Like It

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“The Stage of Life”

In this activity, students will compose and perform a fool’s speech on one of the lessons conveyed by the play.

Some of Shakespeare’s most commonly quoted lines, including the line “All the world’s a stage,” come from As You Like It. Fools (also known as jesters) such as Touchstone or the would-be fool Jaques often offer quotable lines because they are particularly skilled in speaking truth to power in a way that is palatable and entertaining. In this activity, each student will imagine that they are a medieval fool or jester and compose a short fool’s speech containing the following components:

• Humorous or entertaining elements, such as wordplay, jokes, or parody
• Commentary or a message, whether serious or comical, about a lesson conveyed by As You Like It on some aspect of life (e.g., love, political power, social institutions, family, or conventions such as marriage)
• A clear statement that questions or challenges (for a valid, insightful reason) conventional attitudes towards the life lesson conveyed by the play

After rehearsing, perform the speech for the class. As classmates perform their speeches, note examples for discussion of the various lessons presented in the play and the ways in which each “jester” questions or challenges the lesson. Once everyone has presented, discuss as a group: How does the play use fools to reflect on the play’s overarching themes, symbols, and motifs? What is ironic in having jesters or fools speak the way they do about certain lessons or ideas?

Teaching Suggestion: Encourage students to use textual support in building their speeches, carefully reading and thinking about the speeches of fools such as Touchstone and Jaques (including his “All the world’s a stage” speech). Students may want to consider stylistic devices evident in the speeches, important symbols and motifs that feature throughout the play, and figurative language ideas including personification (e.g., Fortune or the natural world).

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Primogeniture, or the practice of having one’s eldest son inherit from the father, was a common practice in Shakespeare’s time. This practice is reflected in Oliver’s inheritance of Sir Rowland de Boys’s estate in the play.

• How does Shakespeare represent or manipulate the concept of primogeniture in As You Like It? (topic sentence)
• Analyze and discuss at least 3 specific instances or passages in which the play addresses the concept of primogeniture. How do these instances help to develop plot and characterization?
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, evaluate with rationale whether Shakespeare represents primogeniture as a positive or a negative force in the play.

2. The contrast between court life and country life is a major theme throughout the play. At the end of the play, both Jaques and Duke Frederick leave the court to live solitary lives, while most of the main characters (including Rosalind, Orlando, and Duke Senior) leave the country to return to the court.

• Which 3 characters are most strongly compelled by the contrast between court life and country life? (topic sentence)
• Explain and offer your argument in support of these choices, citing concrete examples of how characters experience and/or perceive the contrast between court life and country life.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, elaborate on the extent to which the contrast between court life and country life affects the play’s ending; briefly offer your rationale.

3. Different types of love are prominent throughout the play; for example, romantic relationships blossom between several of the characters (including Rosalind and Orlando, Celia and Oliver, and Phoebe and Silvius).

• Which type of love represented in the play has the greatest impact on character arc? (topic sentence)
• In the body of your essay, briefly discuss at least 3 examples of types of love in the play; then offer evidence and analysis to prove the love you selected has the greatest impact on the arc of certain characters.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, briefly summarize the main lesson conveyed by the play through its inclusion of The Many Types of Romantic and Platonic Love.

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. Consider Rosalind’s speech in the Epilogue in light of her decision to disguise herself as a man throughout the play. How does Rosalind’s character reflect on traditional gender roles in Shakespeare’s time? Consider the fact that when the play first premiered all characters—including female roles—would have been played by male actors. In a 3- or 5-paragraph essay, analyze and discuss how the Epilogue reflects the fluidity of gender as presented throughout the play. Provide text details to substantiate your ideas, and cite quotations with act, scene, and line number.

2. Review the comments various characters make regarding Fortune in Act I, Scene 2 and Act II, Scene 7. What role does fortune have in the play? How do different characters in the play think about fortune? In a 3- or 5-paragraph essay, analyze and evaluate the significance of the personification of fortune in the play. Include text details and cite your quotations with act, scene, and line number.

3. A few of the characters in the play (such as Rosalind and Jaques) are able to perceive things that other characters do not. Where does each character’s wisdom come from? How is their wisdom similar? How is it different? Besides Rosalind and Jaques, which of the other characters can see through the performances—explicit or implicit—of others? Discuss your ideas on wisdom as a motif in the play in a structured essay. Incorporate text details and cite your quotations with act, scene, and line number.

Multiple Choice and Long Answer Questions create ideal opportunities for whole-text review, exams, or summative assessments.

Multiple Choice

1. What is the name of the convention that makes Oliver rather than Orlando the inheritor of Sir Rowland de Boys’s estate?

A) Primogeniture

B) Concubinage

C) Husbandry

D) Servitude

2. What does Celia mean when she tells Rosalind, “Marry, I prithee do, to make sport withal; but / love no man in good earnest, nor no further in / sport neither than with safety of pure blush thou / mayst in honor come off again” (Act I, Scene 2)?

A) That Rosalind should not take love too seriously

B) That falling in love is not fun

C) That she should only give her heart to somebody she truly loves

D) That falling in love is dishonorable

3. Who is Rosalind’s father?

A) Duke Frederick

B) Touchstone

C) Oliver

D) Duke Senior

4. Which quote best expresses the sentiment that fools often hide their wisdom behind a veil of foolishness?

A) “All the world’s a stage / And all the men and women merely players.” (Act II, Scene 7)

B) “O, how bitter a / thing it is to look into happiness through another / man’s eyes.” (Act V, Scene 2)

C) “Now go we in content / To liberty, and not to banishment.” (Act I, Scene 3)

D) “The more pity that fools may not speak / wisely what men do foolishly.” (Act I, Scene 2)

5. How does Oliver initially try to have Orlando killed?

A) By burning his house down

B) By trying to convince Charles to kill him in their wrestling match

C) By stabbing him while he sleeps

D) Oliver does not try to have Orlando killed

6. Why does Celia insist on accompanying Rosalind into exile?

A) So that she can be with Oliver

B) So that she can become a shepherdess

C) So that she can murder Rosalind

D) So that she can avoid living at court without Rosalind

7. Which of the following literary devices is exemplified in Jaques’s line, “All the world’s a stage”?

A) Personification

B) Simile

C) Metaphor

D) Alliteration

8. With whom does Touchstone debate the respective merits of life in the country versus life in the court?

A) Jaques

B) Corin

C) Audrey

D) Rosalind

9. Which of the following quotes illustrates that lovers are often untrustworthy and fickle?

A) “The oath of a lover is / no stronger than the word of a tapster.” (Act III, Scene 4)

B) “I know the more one sickens, / the worse at ease he is, and that he that wants / money, means, and content is without three good friends.” (Act III, Scene 2)

C) “The truest poetry is the most / feigning, and lovers are given to poetry, and what / they swear in poetry may be said as lovers they do / feign.” (Act III, Scene 3)

D) Both A and C.

10. Who is Aliena?

A) Celia’s alter ego

B) Rosalind’s alter ego

C) The daughter of Rowland de Boys

D) The daughter of Corin

11. What does Rosalind mean when she tells Orlando that “men are April when they / woo, December when they wed. Maids are May / when they are maids, but the sky changes when / they are wives” (Act IV, Scene 1)?

A) That only certain months are appropriate for a wedding

B) That men and women change for the worse after marriage

C) That marriage can only be between a woman and a man

D) That true love is as illogical as the weather

12. Which of the following quotes best illustrates why Celia disapproves of Rosalind’s deception of Orlando?

A) “Something browner than Judas’s. Marry, his kisses are Judas’s own children.” (Act III, Scene 4)

B) “Now go we in content / To liberty, and not to banishment.” (Act I, Scene 3)

C) “You have simply misused our sex in your love-/prate.” (Act IV, Scene 1)

D) “Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?” (Act III, Scene 5)

13. Why is Duke Senior so eager to take Orlando into his company?

A) Because Orlando’s father was a close friend of his

B) Because he wants to anger his brother Duke Frederick

C) Because Jaques convinces him to do so

D) Because Orlando is his son

14. Who marries the four couples at the end of the play?

A) Jaques

B) Hymen

C) Duke Senior

D) Sir Oliver Martext

15. What ends Duke Senior’s exile at the end of the play?

A) Duke Senior becomes the ruler of a neighboring kingdom.

B) Duke Senior dies.

C) Duke Frederick is murdered by followers of Duke Senior.

D) Duke Frederick decides to leave his lands to become a monk.

Long Answer

Compose a response of 2-3 sentences, incorporating text details to support your response.

1. How does Orlando and Oliver’s relationship transform over the course of the play?

2. Briefly explain the meaning of Jaques’s “All the world’s a stage” speech in the context of the play.