As You Like It: The Ecology of Shakespeare's Forest of Arden

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In this episode, we explore the ecology of Shakespeare's Forest of Arden and what the events of As You Like It might have meant to an early modern audience (and a certain playwright) living through real environmental and agricultural change that impacted the real Forest of Arden near Shakespeare's hometown. We look at how shifting agricultural practices in Shakespeare's England shape the play's depiction of land, labor, and pastoral life in the Forest of Arden. We then explore the play's connection to the enclosure riots of the period, and what Shakespeare's fictional forest reveals about real anxieties over land rights, common land, and rural unrest in early modern England.

Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp.

Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander.

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Works referenced:

Brokaw, Katherine Steele, and Elizabeth Freestone. Performing Shakespeare on an Endangered Planet. Cambridge University Press, 2025.

Martin, Randall. " Land-Uses and Convertible Husbandry in As You Like It." Shakespeare and Ecology, Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kingdom, 2015, pp. 56–77.

Wilson, Richard. "'Like the Old Robin Hood': 'As You Like It' and the Enclosure Riots." Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 1, 1992, pp. 1–19. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2870900. Accessed 27 Aug. 2026.