As You Like It: The New Oxford Shakespeare

’We that are true lovers run into strange capers.’

Four centuries after its publication in the Folio, As You Like It’s capacity to entertain and instruct remains evergreen. This edition provides a friendly yet authoritative introduction to the play, upholding it as a crowning expression of the Elizabethan Renaissance while underscoring its appeal to twenty-first century readers as Shakespeare’s most intrepid exploration of gender, sexuality, and the environment. Its double-cross-dressed heroine dominates the plot (and their love interest Orlando) to conduct a masterclass in gender fluidity. The melancholic Jaques unmasks the fundamental theatricality of existence and questions humanity’s prerogative to displace and harm other species. Through the clown Touchstone, the comedy tests the possibility that we might laugh ourselves wise, especially when we learn to laugh at ourselves. In the Forest of Arden, we encounter Shakespeare’s most beguiling vision of the natural world as a realm of serenity and harmony, while brushing up against the briars that puncture our fantasies of the simple life.

The New Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative editions of Shakespeare’s works with introductory materials designed to encourage new interpretations of the plays and poems. Using the text from the landmark The New Oxford Shakespeare Complete Works: Modern Critical Edition, these volumes offer readers the latest thinking on the authentic texts (collated from all surviving original versions of Shakespeare’s work) alongside innovative introductions from leading scholars. The texts are accompanied by a comprehensive set of critical apparatus to give readers the best resources to help understand and enjoy Shakespeare’s work.

ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford’s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

William Shakespeare

Todd Borlik is Reader in Renaissance Literature at the University of Huddersfield, UK. He studied English Literature at Washington University in St. Louis and Keble College, Oxford before completing his PhD at the University of Washington in Seattle. For five years, he taught as an Assistant Professor at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania. He is the author of three books and over thirty articles or book chapters on Shakespeare and early modern English literature. He is currently co-editing an Arden guide to The Winter’s Tale and The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and the Natural World.

Francis X. Connor is Associate Professor of English at Wichita State University, where he teaches courses in Shakespeare, Early Modern Literature, and the history of the book. An associate editor for the New Oxford Shakespeare, he is the author of Literary Folios and Ideas of the Book in Early Modern England (2014), and his work has appeared in Shakespeare Survey, PBSA, Sidney Journal, and elsewhere.