Rosalind

Book excerpt: The critically acclaimed biography of Shakespeare's most enduring heroine, Rosalind, now in paperback.Into the spotlight steps Rosalind, the actor-manager of As You Like It.She's alive. She's modern. She's also a fiction.Played by a boy actor in 1599, she's a girl who gets into men's clothes to investigate the truth about love.Both male and female, imaginary and real, her intriguing duality gives her a special role.What is a man? What is a woman?We are all Rosalind now.This book is for everyone who has ever loved Shakespeare. Like Rosalind, his most innovative heroine, he can never die. She too is timeless. There is no clock in the Forest of Arden where Rosalind finds herself and applies her mercurial wit to teach her lover, Orlando, how to become her perfect partner, issues which consume men and women today.This highly original 'biography' of Rosalind contains exclusive new interviews with Juliet Rylance, Sally Scott, Janet Suzman, Juliet Stevenson, Michelle Terry, award-winning director Blanche McIntyre, as well as insights from Michael Attenborough, Kenneth Branagh, Greg Doran, Rebecca Hall, Adrian Lester, Pippa Nixon, Vanessa Redgrave and Fiona Shaw. Angela Thirlwell explores the fictitious life and the many after-lives of Rosalind, Shakespeare's progressive new heroine, and her perennial influence on drama, fiction and art.