Exiled to Eden

In his introduction to As You Like It , John Powell Ward free associates on the Forest of Arden, to good effect: “Arden, garden, Garden of Eden (and Adam), ardent, Mary Arden, Arden in Warwickshire, the Ardennes in France – there are many leads into what is suggested. Despite the frenchified names and the echo of the argour of love, surely banishment away from political involvement and danger and onward to bliss are the most resonant impressions. Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden: our characters are banished to it. The myth is underlined by being reversed. They move from court and city out to the forest; back from the fallen world into Eden itself.”