Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.
- How does As You Like It fit into the "pastoral" genre?
- For a play that works really hard to marry off four couples, As You Like It sure does contain a lot of jokes about cuckoldry (wives cheating on their husbands). What's up with that? Do the cuckold jokes undermine the play's seemingly pro-marriage attitude? Does this play have a pro-marriage attitude?
- As You Like It is structured in a way that allows Shakespeare to juxtapose characters, attitudes, and even settings. Discuss one or two specific examples of juxtaposition in the play and describe the overall impact of this structure.
- As You Like It is one of Shakespeare's gender-bending comedies. Discuss how Rosalind's "Ganymede" disguise challenges traditional attitudes about gender.
- Compare and contrast As You It and Twelfth Night. Go on, we dare you.
- What's the purpose of Phoebe falling in love with "Ganymede"? What does this suggest about the nature of same-sex desire?
- Does Shakespeare want us to take As You Like It seriously? Or is the play meant to be the fluffy cotton candy of Shakespearean drama?
- Epilogues in Elizabethan plays were usually delivered by actors playing the parts of male characters. Why does Shakespeare have Rosalind deliver the epilogue of As You Like It? (Psst. You might want to read the epilogue before you answer this question.)
- What's the overall significance of the play's title, As You Like It?
- Why the heck doesn't Jaques take part in the festivities at the play's end?