Love in As You Like It Over the centuries, men have asked themselves many big questions. Among them is the question: "What is love?" There is no doubt that the greatest name in English literature, Shakespeare, tried to answer this question himself. Indeed, Shakespeare recorded his response in many of the sonnets and plays he wrote, including As You Like It. As Shakespeare learned in trying to answer this question, love is many things, which in this play he observes through the play's characters, but more directly through Silvio: It must be all made of fancy, All made of passion and all made of fantasy. of desires, All adoration, duty and observance, All humility, all patience and impatience, All purity, all proof, all observance... (V.ii). In this play, Shakespeare associates love with many characteristics. Love is often associated with altruism in this play. Part of the answer to the question of love is also altruism. And an important part of love is the truth. Love embodies all of a person's greatest characteristics: sincerity, selflessness, and faithfulness. Part of love is altruism. Throughout the play, many characters demonstrate selflessness which in turn reflects their love for each other. Orlando is one of these characters. He and the ever faithful Adam are wandering the Forest of Arden, as Adam had warned Orlando of certain death. Orlando's older brother, Oliver, had harbored a deep hatred towards Orlando, a hatred that had grown to immense proportions. If Orlando had had his own house, he would have been killed. Adam managed to convince Orlando to escape and now they are in the forest. Once here, however, Adam can go no further, because he is just an old man. "I die by... half the paper..." 'Strange Events': Improbabilities in As You Like It." Shakespeare Studies. 4 (1968): 119-124. Brown, John Russell. "The Order of Love and the judgment of As You Like It." Twentieth-Century Interpretations of As You Like It. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968. Lifson, Martha Ronk "Learning by Talking: Conversation in As You Like It." Shakespeare Survey .40.2 (1987): 93-98. Leo. Shakespeare and the Traditions of Comedy. London: Cambridge University Press. gh.cs.usyd.edu.au/~matty/Shakespeare/texts/comedies/asyoulikeit.html [date not given].Vaughn, Jack A. Shakespeare's Comedies New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1980. Wilson, The Happy Comedies by John Dover Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1962.