The Representation of Communitas in the Forest of Arden: Shakespeare’s As You Like It

In As You Like It, Shakespeare creates the Forest of Arden as a transitional liminal site where the characters undergo a process of becoming and transformation. While it is possible to analyse the individual experience of liminality and focus on the influence of the liminal place on the characters of the play, the play has a revealing case for the examination of the collective experience of liminality as well. Communitas, in Victor Turner’s terms, refers to a group or a community’s going through a rite of passage en masse. Accordingly, the group of exiles living in Arden who escape from the tyranny of Duke Frederick develop a bond of equality and a sense of freedom in an anti-structural attitude. Duke Senior and other courtiers in the forest communally experience liminality during the period between their separation from the court and their eventual return. Moreover, Duke Senior’s daughter, Rosalind, and her cousin Celia are engaged in the same process upon their arrival to Arden. While both of these groups fit into Turner’s definition of communitas and particularly share certain characteristics of ideological communitas, their experience can be grounded on the basis of their gender that divides them into two as male communitas and female communitas. This paper aims to scrutinise how these two groups collectively experience liminality in Arden and to explore the nuances of each communitas by framing the issue in Turner’s conceptualisation of the term.