"As You Like It" has many shared elements with some of Shakespeare's more famous comedies: the idea of the forest as a magic or transformative space away from restrictive and tyrannical society ("A Midsummer night's dream"); the theme of unrequited love and gender switching from ("Twelfth night"); and the exiled Duke and his playful daughter from ("The Tempest").
The mood is light, and it is easy to read, even though it may not be as compelling a read as the aforementioned comedies.
My college professor always asked this question when we were trying to categorized the plays: Did anyone die? If the answer is "no," then it is most likely a comedy. The tragedies and most of the histories record deaths within the text. The comedies never do...not even "The Taming of the Shrew".
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