Arden Shakespeare Arden Shakespeare The Arden Shakespeare is a long-running series of scholarly editions of the works of William Shakespeare. It presents fully edited modern-spelling editions of the plays and poems, with lengthy introductions and full commentaries. There have been three distinct series of the Arden Shakespeare over the past century, and the third series has not yet been completed. Arden was the maiden name of Shakespeare's mother, Mary, but the primary reference of the enterprise's title is named after the Forest of Arden, in which Shakespeare's "As You Like It" is set. The first series was published by Methuen. Its first
As You Like It production of the play was Cheek by Jowl's 1991 production, directed by Declan Donnellan. Thomas Morley (c. 1557–1602) composed music for "It was a lover and his lass"; he lived in the same parish as Shakespeare, and at times composed music for Shakespeare's plays. In 1942, Gerald Finzi included a setting of "It was a lover and his lass" (V, iii) in his song cycle on Shakespearean texts "Let Us Garlands Bring". Cleo Laine sang a jazz setting of "It was a lover and his lass" on her 1964 album "Shakespeare... and all that Jazz". The composer is credited as