Rosalind (As You Like It) Rosalind (As You Like It) Rosalind is the heroine and protagonist of the play "As You Like It" (1600) by William Shakespeare. She is the daughter of the exiled Duke Senior and niece to his usurping brother Duke Frederick. Her father is banished from the kingdom, breaking her heart. She then meets Orlando, one of her father's friends' son and falls in love with him. After angering her uncle, she leaves his court for exile in the Forest of Arden. Disguised as a shepherd named Ganymede, Rosalind lives with her sweet and devoted cousin, Celia (who is disguised as Ganymede's
As You Like It opinion of the work by calling it "As You Like It" – as if the playwright did not agree. Tolstoy objected to the immorality of the characters and Touchstone's constant clowning. Other critics have found great literary value in the work. Harold Bloom has written that Rosalind is among Shakespeare's greatest and most fully realised female characters. The elaborate gender reversals in the story are of particular interest to modern critics interested in gender studies. Through four acts of the play, Rosalind, who in Shakespeare's day would have been played by a boy, finds it necessary to disguise herself as