As You Like It Love

Cousins Celia and Rosalind are super-close and they're <em>always</em> professing how much they love each other, which prompts some audiences to wonder if there's something steamy going on here.  Some literary critics just see a very close-knit female friendship here.  Others describe the relationship as being "homoerotic" ("homoerotic" just refers to erotic emotions and desires that are directed toward a person of the same sex).  

Young Silvius assumes that, because Corin is old, he can't possibly understand what it feels like to be in love. Of course, Silvius is being silly and overly dramatic here, but this concept surfaces throughout Shakespeare's work. In Romeo and Juliet, for example, Juliet declares that her Nurse's old age prevents her from understanding the youthful urgency of her passion for Romeo:

Had she affections and warm youthful blood,
She would be as swift in motion as a ball;
My words would bandy her to my sweet love,
And his to me. (2.5.1)

In case you hadn't noticed, Touchstone has a sense of humor about his past experiences with country-style love, which apparently involved making out with Jane Smile, a girl whose hands were chapped from milking cows. 

OMG! Rosalind can't wait to hear what Orlando's been up to when she finds out that he's not only in the forest, but that he's also been tagging up all the trees with poetry about her.  Like we've said, even Rosalind, who's usually a calm and collected girl, is laid flat by love. 

Rosalind really does believe love is a madness; she is not just speaking in jest here.  One of her intricacies as a character is to admit that love is madness and still be perfectly happy to get caught up in it (something someone like Jaques could not do).

Has Phoebe fallen in love with "Ganymede" or with Rosalind?  It's not entirely clear and ultimately it probably doesn't matter because Rosalind eventually reveals her true identity and Phoebe marries Silvius.  Still, the fact that Phoebe gets turned on by "Ganymede" draws our attention to the homoerotic possibilities of the play.  The same-sex attraction at work here also recalls the intimate relationship between Rosalind and her cousin Celia.

Oh, burn!  When Phoebe acts like a snotty Petrarchan mistress, Rosalind is not having any of it.  She even advises Phoebe to marry Silvius now while she can because nobody else will want her: "For I must tell you friendly in your ear,/ Sell when you can: you are not for all markets."  Ouch.

Uh-oh.  It looks like we've got another pathetic Petrarchan lover on our hands when Silvius begs stuck-up Phoebe not to scorn him.

That Rosalind sure is a clever girl.  Disguised as "Ganymede," Rosalind offers to help her crush Orlando practice his moves.  Orlando takes up the offer—he pretends that "Ganymede" is Rosalind and woos "him." It's a little confusing, we know.  Still, as critic Katharine Eisaman Maus points out, here, Orlando and Rosalind indulge in an "elaborate game of 'Let's pretend.'"  By playing make-believe, Orlando and Rosalind can indulge in their fantasies without any consequences. They even have a pretend wedding—how sweet!  

We also want to point out that Orlando's enthusiastic willingness to woo "Ganymede" raises the question of whether or not Orlando is attracted to "Ganymede." We never really know for sure, but Shakespeare definitely wants us to think about it.

Rosalind is a big, big fan of being in love, but she's also got a really good head on her shoulders, which makes her different than all the other foolish lovers in the play.  When sappy Orlando declares that he'll just "die" if Rosalind doesn't love him, she quickly points out that he's being melodramatic.  Here, she's also rejecting the silly pose of the Petrarchan mistress.  (See Quote #10 above for more on this.)  

Say what?  Rosalind's frown might "kill" Orlando? Not likely. Like Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, Orlando acts like a typical "Petrarchan" lover when he falls in love with Rosalind. What the heck's a Petrarchan lover? A guy who mopes around sighing dramatically, moaning about the fact that his crush wants nothing to do with him, and reciting cheesy poetry about a girl who's got eyes like stars and lips like luscious cherries, and who fills men with icy-fire. The concept comes from the 14th-century poet Petrarch, whose sonnets were all about an unattainable mistress named "Laura" who went around stomping on men's hearts.