As You Like It As You Like It As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility. "As You Like It" follows its heroine Rosalind as she flees persecution in her uncle's court, accompanied by her cousin Celia to find safety and, eventually, love, in the Forest of Arden. In the forest, they encounter a variety of memorable characters, notably the melancholy traveller Jaques who speaks
As You Like It no evidence that the poem was written before "As You Like It". The second suggested source is "The Historie of Orlando Furioso" by Robert Greene, acted about 1592. It is suggested that Shakespeare derived the idea of Orlando's carving his lady's name on barks of trees from this play, but a lover carving love-poems on barks of trees was already in Lodge's tale. "As You Like It" was first printed in the collected edition of Shakespeare's plays, known as the First Folio, during 1623. No copy of it in Quarto exists, for the play is mentioned by the printers of