As You Like It is love: the language of loveThe most obvious concern of As You Like It is love, and in particular the attitudes and language appropriate to young romantic love. This is evident in the relationships between Orlando and Rosalind, Silvius and Phoebe, Touchstone and Audrey, and Celia and Oliver. The action of the play takes place between these couples, inviting us to compare the different styles and to recognize from these comparisons some important facts about young love. Here, Rosalind's role is decisive. Rosalind is Shakespeare's greatest and most vibrant female comic role. She is clearly the only character in the play who possesses an intelligent, erotic, fully grounded sense of love, and her task in the play is to try to educate others out of their false notions of love. , especially those that suggest that the real business of love is adopting inflated Petrarchan language and the appropriate attitude that goes with it. Rosalind falls in love with Orlando at first sight (as is the case in Shakespeare), becomes erotically energetic, and remains so throughout the play. She is delighted and excited by this experience and is determined to live it to the fullest, moment by moment. One of the great pleasures of watching Rosalind is that she always celebrates her passionate feelings for Orlando. She doesn't deny them or try to play with her emotions. She is aware that falling in love has made her subject to Célia's gentle teasing, but she is not going to pretend that she is not totally enthusiastic about this experience just to spare herself the teasing (she even laughs at herself- even, while taking immense pleasure in the behavior that incites...... middle of article ......anet Lloyd Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1993. McFarland, Thomas Shakespeare's Pastoral Comedy: University of North Carolina Press, 1972. .Marsden, Jean I. The Text Reimagined: Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Eighteenth-Century Literary Theory Lexington, Kentucky: University of Kentucky Press, 1995. Odell, George CD Shakespeare from Betterton to Irving Vol .: Dover Publications, 1966. Russell, Anne E. “History and Real Life: Anna Jameson, Shakespeare's Heroines and Victorian Women” Victorian Review: The Journal of the Victorian Studies Association of Western Canada 17.2 (Winter 1991): 35-49.Shakespeare, William. As you like it in The Riverside Shakespeare. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1974. Terry, Ellen. Four lectures on Shakespeare. New York: Benjamin Bloom, Inc..., 1969.