As You Like IT - Source

Source

Shakespeare hardly ever invented the stories of his plays. Like other writers at that time, he borrowed them from old stories or poems, but rewrote them in his own words. The direct and immediate source of "As You Like It" is Thomas Lodge's "Rosalind, Euphues' Golden Legacy", first published in 1590. Lodge's story is based upon "The Tale of Gamelyn", wrongly attributed to Chaucer and printed among Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales". The "Tale" must have existed in manuscript form in Shakespeare's time, though it was first printed in 1721. It is extremely doubtful if Shakespeare had read it. But Lodge must have built his pastoral romance on the foundation of the "Tale", giving it a pastoral setting and an artificial vein of feeling and sentiment that were much in fashion at the time. The novel provided the intertwined plots, and suggested all the characters except Touchstone and Jaques.

Two other minor debts have been suggested by some. The first is Drayton's "Polyolbion", a poetic description of England but there is no evidence that the poem was written before 'As You Like It'. The second suggested source is "Orlando Furioso" of Robert Greene, acted about 1592. It is said that Shakespeare derived the idea of Orlando's carving his lady's name on barks of trees from this play. But a lover carving love-poems on barks of trees was already in Lodge's novel.