ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -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.

Detailed explanation-2: -The Forest of Arden has the role of arranging a pastoral world where the sincere passion of the play’s loving couples i.e. Rosalind-Orlando, Oliver-Celia grows into fulfillment. Rosalind and Celia become Ganymede and Aliena in the forest and find greater freedom to express their true nature.

Detailed explanation-3: -The play has two principal settings: the court that Frederick has usurped from his brother, the rightful duke (known as Duke Senior), and the Forest of Arden, where the Duke and his followers (including the disgruntled Jaques) are living in exile.

Detailed explanation-4: -’ I want to impart the idea that The Forest is not meant as a symbol of something, but rather as a feeling, an attitude towards life. Thus, it is neither symbolic of love nor forgiveness nor renewal, but rather impersonates those qualities.

Detailed explanation-5: -Arden, the Forest of the home of the banished Duke in Shakespeare’s As You Like It; it is often understood as representing the actual forest in Warwickshire called Arden and referred to in romance literature, but is actually based on the forest of the Ardennes in the Low Countries (now Belgium).