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= Love's_Labour's_Lost =
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Introduction
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'Love's Labour's Lost' is one of William Shakespeare's early comedies,
believed to have been written in the mid-1590s for a performance at
the Inns of Court before Queen Elizabeth I. It follows the King of
Navarre and his three companions as they attempt to swear off the
company of women for three years in order to focus on study and
fasting. Their subsequent infatuation with the Princess of France and
her ladies makes them forsworn (break their oath). In an untraditional
ending for a comedy, the play closes with the death of the Princess's
father, and all weddings are delayed for a year. The play draws on
themes of masculine love and desire, reckoning and rationalisation,
and reality versus fantasy.
Though first published in quarto in 1598, the play's title page
suggests a revision of an earlier version of the play. There are no
obvious sources for the play's plot. The use of apostrophes in the
play's title varies in early editions, though it is most commonly
given as 'Love's Labour's Lost'.
Shakespeare's audiences were familiar with the historical personages
portrayed and the political situation in Europe relating to the
setting and action of the play. Scholars suggest the play lost
popularity as these historical and political portrayals of Navarre's
court became dated and less accessible to theatergoers of later
generations. The play's sophisticated wordplay, pedantic humour and
dated literary allusions may also be causes for its relative
obscurity, as compared with Shakespeare's more popular works. 'Love's
Labour's Lost' was rarely staged in the 19th century, but it has been
seen more often in the 20th and 21st centuries, with productions by
the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, and the Stratford
Festival of Canada, among others. It has also been adapted as a
musical, an opera, for radio and television and as a musical film.
Characters
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* Ferdinand - King of Navarre
* Lord Berowne (or Biron), Lord Longueville (or Longaville) and Lord
Dumaine - attending on the King
* Princess of France, later Queen of France
* Lady Rosaline, Lady Maria, Lady Katharine and Boyet - attending on
the Princess
* Marcadé - messenger
* Don Adriano de Armado - a fantastical Spaniard
* Moth - Armado's page
* Sir Nathaniel - curate
* Holofernes - schoolmaster
* Dull - constable
* Costard - a rustic
* Jaquenetta - country wench
* Forester
* Officers and others, attendants on the King and Princess
Synopsis
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Ferdinand, King of Navarre, and his three noble companions, the Lords
Berowne, Dumaine, and Longaville, take an oath not to give in to the
company of women. They devote themselves to three years of study and
fasting; Berowne agrees somewhat more hesitantly than the others. The
King declares that no woman should come within a mile of the court.
Don Adriano de Armado, a Spaniard visiting the court, writes a letter
to tell the King of a tryst between Costard and Jaquenetta. After the
King sentences Costard, Don Armado confesses his own love for
Jaquenetta to his page, Moth. Don Armado writes Jaquenetta a letter
and asks Costard to deliver it.
The Princess of France and her ladies arrive, wishing to speak to the
King regarding the cession of Aquitaine, but must ultimately make
their camp outside the court due to the decree. In visiting the
Princess and her ladies at their camp, the King falls in love with the
Princess, as do the lords with the ladies. Berowne gives Costard a
letter to deliver to the lady Rosaline, which Costard switches with
Don Armado's letter that was meant for Jaquenetta. Jaquenetta consults
two scholars, Holofernes and Sir Nathaniel, who conclude that the
letter is written by Berowne and instruct her to tell the King.
The King and his lords lie in hiding and watch one another as each
subsequently reveals his feelings of love. The King ultimately
chastises the lords for breaking the oath, but Berowne reveals that
the King is likewise in love with the Princess. Jaquenetta and Costard
enter with Berowne's letter and accuse him of treason. Berowne
confesses to breaking the oath, explaining that the only study worthy
of mankind is that of love, and he and the other men collectively
decide to relinquish the vow. Arranging for Holofernes to entertain
the ladies later, the men then dress as Muscovites and court the
ladies in disguise. The Queen's courtier Boyet, having overheard their
planning, helps the ladies trick the men by disguising themselves as
each other. When the lords return as themselves, the ladies taunt them
and expose their ruse.
Impressed by the ladies' wit, the men apologize, and when all
identities are righted, they watch Holofernes, Sir Nathaniel, Costard,
Moth and Don Armado present the Nine Worthies. The four lords and
Boyet heckle the play, saving their sole praise for Costard. Don
Armado and Costard almost come to blows when Costard reveals
mid-pageant that Don Armado has got Jaquenetta pregnant. Their spat is
interrupted by news that the Princess's father has died. The Princess
makes plans to leave at once, and she and her ladies, readying for
mourning, declare that the men must wait a year and a day to prove
their loves lasting. Don Armado announces he will swear a similar oath
to Jaquenetta and then presents the nobles with a song.
Sources
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The four main male characters are all loosely based on historical
figures; Navarre is based on Henry of Navarre (who later became Henry
IV of France), Berowne on Charles de Gontaut, duc de Biron, Dumain on
Charles, duc de Mayenne and Longaville on Henri I d'Orléans, duc de
Longueville. Biron in particular was well known in England because
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, had joined forces with Biron's
army in support of Henry in 1591. Albert Tricomi states that "the
play's humorous idealization could remain durable as long as the
French names of its principal characters remained familiar to
Shakespeare's audiences. This means that the witty portrayal of
Navarre's court could remain reasonably effective until the
assassination of Henry IV in 1610. ... Such considerations suggest
that the portrayals of Navarre and the civil-war generals presented
Elizabethan audiences not with a mere collection of French names in
the news, but with an added dramatic dimension which, once lost, helps
to account for the eclipse 'Love's Labour's Lost' soon underwent."
Critics have attempted to draw connections between notable Elizabethan
English persons and the characters of Don Armado, Moth, Sir Nathaniel,
and Holofernes, with little success.
Date and text
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Most scholars believe the play was written in 1594-1595, but not later
than 1598. 'Love's Labour's Lost' was first published in quarto in
1598 by the bookseller Cuthbert Burby. The title page states that the
play was "Newly corrected and augmented by W. Shakespere," which has
suggested to some scholars a revision of an earlier version.
Dating to 1598, Edinburgh University's manuscript is one of the
earliest known copies of the work and according to its title page, is
the same version as that which was presented to Queen Elizabeth I the
previous Christmas, in 1597. It is in quarto format and was donated to
Edinburgh University between 1626 and 1636 by former student William
Drummond of Hawthornden, making it part of the university's first
literature collection.
The play next appeared in print in the First Folio in 1623, with a
later quarto in 1631. 'Love's Labour's Won' is considered by some to
be a lost sequel.
The speech given by Berowne at 4.3.284-361 is potentially the longest
in all of Shakespeare's plays, depending on editorial choices.
Shakespeare critic and editor Edward Capell has pointed out that
certain passages within the speech seem to be redundant and argues
that these passages represent a first draft which was not adequately
corrected before going to print. Specifically, lines 291-313 are
"repeated in substance" further in the speech and are sometimes
omitted by editors. With no omissions, the speech is 77 lines and 588
words.
Title
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The title is normally given as 'Love's Labour's Lost'. The use of
apostrophes varies in early editions. In its first 1598 quarto
publication it appears as 'Loues labors loſt'. In the 1623 First Folio
it is 'Loues Labour's Lost' and in the 1631 quarto it is 'Loues
Labours Lost'. In the Third Folio it appears for the first time with
the modern punctuation and spelling as 'Love's Labour's Lost'.
Historian John Hale notes that the title could be read as "love's
labour is lost" or "the lost labours of love" depending on
punctuation. Hale suggests that this parallel nature of product and
process was intended and is derived from existing Latin idioms. Hale
suggests that the witty alliteration of the title is in keeping with
the pedantic nature of the play. In 1935 Frances Yates asserted that
the title derived from a line in John Florio's 'His firste Fruites'
(1578): "We neede not speak so much of loue, al books are ful of lou,
with so many authours, that it were labour lost to speake of Loue", a
source from which Shakespeare also took the untranslated Venetian
proverb 'Venetia, Venetia/Chi non ti vede non ti pretia' (LLL
4.2.92-93) ("Venice, Venice, Who does not see you cannot praise you").
Reputation
============
'Love's Labour's Lost' abounds in sophisticated wordplay, puns, and
literary allusions and is filled with clever pastiches of contemporary
poetic forms. Critic and historian John Pendergast states that
"perhaps more than any other Shakespearean play, it explores the power
and limitations of language, and this blatant concern for language led
many early critics to believe that it was the work of a playwright
just learning his art." In 'The Western Canon' (1994), Harold Bloom
lauds the work as "astonishing" and refers to it as Shakespeare's
"first absolute achievement". It is often assumed that the play was
written for performance at the Inns of Court, whose students would
have been most likely to appreciate its style. It has never been among
Shakespeare's most popular plays, probably because its pedantic humour
and linguistic density are extremely demanding of contemporary
theatregoers. The satirical allusions of Navarre's court are likewise
inaccessible, "having been principally directed to fashions of
language that have long passed away, and [are] consequently little
understood, rather than in any great deficiency of invention."
Masculine desire
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Masculine desire structures the play and helps to shape its action.
The men's sexual appetite manifests in their desire for fame and
honour; the notion of women as dangerous to masculinity and intellect
is established early on. The King and his Lords' desires for their
idealized women are deferred, confused, and ridiculed throughout the
play. As the play comes to a close, their desire is deferred yet
again, resulting in an increased exaltation of the women.
Critic Mark Breitenberg commented that the use of idealistic poetry,
popularized by Petrarch, effectively becomes the textualized form of
the male gaze. In describing and idealizing the ladies, the King and
his Lords exercise a form of control over women they love. Don Armado
also represents masculine desire through his relentless pursuit of
Jacquenetta. The theme of desire is heightened by the concern of
increasing female sexuality throughout the Renaissance period and the
consequent threat of cuckoldry. Politics of love, marriage, and power
are equally forceful in shaping the thread of masculine desire that
drives the plot.
Reckoning and rationalization
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The term 'reckoning' is used in its multiple meanings throughout the
Shakespeare canon. In 'Love's Labour's Lost' in particular, it is
often used to signify a moral judgement; most notably, the idea of a
final reckoning as it relates to death. Though the play entwines
fantasy and reality, the arrival of the messenger to announce the
death of the Princess's father ultimately brings this notion to a
head. Scholar Cynthia Lewis suggested that the appearance of the final
reckoning is necessary in reminding the lovers of the seriousness of
marriage. The need to settle the disagreement between Navarre and
France likewise suggests an instance of reckoning, though this
particular reckoning is settled offstage. This is presented in stark
contrast to the final scene, in which the act of reckoning cannot be
avoided. In acknowledging the consequences of his actions, Don Armado
is the only one to deal with his reckoning in a noble manner. The
Lords and the King effectively pass judgement on themselves, revealing
their true moral character when mocking the players during the
representation of the Nine Worthies.
Similar to reckoning is the notion of rationalization, which provides
the basis for the swift change in the ladies' feelings for the men.
The ladies are able to talk themselves into falling in love with the
men due to the rationalization of the men's purported flaws. Lewis
concluded that "the proclivity to rationalize a position, a like, or a
dislike, is linked in 'Love's Labour's Lost' with the difficulty of
reckoning absolute value, whose slipperiness is indicated throughout
the play."
Reality versus fantasy
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Critic Joseph Westlund wrote that 'Love's Labour's Lost' functions as
a "prelude to the more extensive commentary on imagination in 'A
Midsummer Night's Dream'." There are several plot points driven by
fantasy and imagination throughout the play. The Lords and the King's
declaration of abstinence is a fancy that falls short of achievement.
This fantasy rests on the men's idea that the resulting fame will
allow them to circumvent death and oblivion, a fantastical notion
itself. Within moments of swearing their oath, it becomes clear that
their fantastical goal is unachievable given the reality of the world,
the unnatural state of abstinence itself, and the arrival of the
Princess and her ladies. This juxtaposition ultimately lends itself to
the irony and humour in the play.
The commoners represent the theme of reality and achievement versus
fantasy via their production regarding the Nine Worthies. Like the
men's fantastical pursuit of fame, the play within a play represents
the commoners' concern with fame. The relationship between the fantasy
of love and the reality of worthwhile achievement, a popular
Renaissance topic, is also utilized throughout the play. Don Armado
attempts to reconcile these opposite desires using Worthies who fell
in love as model examples. Time is suspended throughout the play and
is of little substance to the plot. The Princess, though originally
"craving quick dispatch," quickly falls under the spell of love and
abandons her urgent business. This suggests that the majority of the
action takes place within a fantasy world. Only with the news of the
Princess's father's death are time and reality reawakened.
Music
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Unlike many of Shakespeare's plays, music plays a role only in the
final scene of 'Love's Labour's Lost'. The songs of spring and winter,
titled "Ver and Hiems" and "The Cuckoo and the Owl", respectively,
occur near the end of the play. Given the critical controversy
regarding the exact dating of 'Love's Labour's Lost', there is some
indication that "the songs belong to the 1597 additions."
Different interpretations of the meaning of these songs include:
optimistic commentary for the future, bleak commentary regarding the
recent announcement of death, or an ironic device by which to direct
the King and his Lords towards a new outlook on love and life. In
keeping with the theme of time as it relates to reality and fantasy,
these are seasonal songs that restore the sense of time to the play.
Due to the opposing nature of the two songs, they can be viewed as a
debate on the opposing attitudes on love found throughout the play.
Catherine McLay comments that the songs are functional in their
interpretation of the central themes in 'Love's Labour's Lost'. McLay
also suggests that the songs negate what many consider to be a
"heretical" ending for a comedy. The songs, a product of traditional
comedic structure, are a method by which the play can be "[brought]
within the periphery of the usual comic definition."
Critic Thomas Berger states that, regardless of the meaning of these
final songs, they are important in their contrast with the lack of
song throughout the rest of the play. In cutting themselves off from
women and the possibility of love, the King and his Lords have
effectively cut themselves off from song. Song is allowed into the
world of the play at the beginning of Act III, after the Princess and
her ladies have been introduced and the men begin to fall in love.
Moth's song "Concolinel" indicates that the vows will be broken. In
Act I, Scene II, Moth recites a poem but fails to sing it. Don Armado
insists that Moth sing it twice, but he does not. Berger infers that a
song was intended to be inserted at this point, but was never written.
Had a song been inserted at this point of the play, it would have
followed dramatic convention of the time, which often called for music
between scenes.
Performance history
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The earliest recorded performance of the play occurred at Christmas in
1597 at the Court before Queen Elizabeth. A second performance is
recorded to have occurred in 1605, either at the house of the Earl of
Southampton or at that of Robert Cecil, Lord Cranborne. The first
known production after Shakespeare's era was not until 1839, at the
Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, with Madame Vestris as Rosaline. 'The
Times' was unimpressed, stating: "The play moved very heavily. The
whole dialogue is but a string of brilliant conceits, which, if not
delivered well, are tedious and unintelligible. The manner in which it
was played last night destroyed the brilliancy completely, and left a
residuum of insipidity which was encumbered rather than relieved by
the scenery and decorations." The only other performances of the play
recorded in England in the 19th century were at Sadler's Wells in 1857
and the St. James's Theatre in 1886.
Notable 20th-century British productions included a 1936 staging at
the Old Vic featuring Michael Redgrave as Ferdinand and Alec Clunes as
Berowne. In 1949, the play was given at the New Theatre with Redgrave
in the role of Berowne. The cast of a 1965 Royal Shakespeare Company
production included Glenda Jackson, Janet Suzman and Timothy West. In
1968, the play was staged by Laurence Olivier for the National
Theatre, with Derek Jacobi as the Duke and Jeremy Brett as Berowne.
The Royal Shakespeare Company produced the play again in 1994. The
critic Michael Billington wrote in his review of the production: "The
more I see 'Love's Labour's Lost', the more I think it Shakespeare's
most beguiling comedy. It both celebrates and satisfies linguistic
exuberance, explores the often painful transition from youth to
maturity, and reminds us of our common mortality."
In late summer 2005, an adaptation of the play was staged in the Dari
language in Kabul, Afghanistan by a group of Afghan actors, and was
reportedly very well received.
A 2009 staging by Shakespeare's Globe theatre, with artistic direction
by Dominic Dromgoole, toured internationally. Ben Brantley, in 'The
New York Times', called the production, seen at Pace University,
"sophomoric". He postulated that the play itself "may well be the
first and best example of a genre that would flourish in less
sophisticated forms five centuries later: the college comedy."
In 2014, the Royal Shakespeare Company completed a double-feature in
which 'Love's Labour's Lost', set on the eve of the First World War,
is followed by 'Much Ado About Nothing' (re-titled 'Love's Labour's
Won'). Dominic Cavendish of the 'Telegraph' called it "the most
blissfully entertaining and emotionally involving RSC offering I've
seen in ages" and remarked that "Parallels between the two works - the
sparring wit, the sex-war skirmishes, the shift from showy linguistic
evasion to heart-felt earnestness - become persuasively apparent."
Literature
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Alfred Tennyson's poem 'The Princess' (and, by extension, Gilbert and
Sullivan's comic opera 'Princess Ida') is speculated by Gerhard Joseph
to have been inspired by 'Love's Labour's Lost'.
Thomas Mann in his novel 'Doctor Faustus' (1943) has the fictional
German composer Adrian Leverkühn attempt to write an opera on the
story of the play.
Musical theatre, opera, and plays
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An opera of the same title as the play was composed by Nicolas
Nabokov, with a libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, and first
performed in 1973.
In the summer of 2013, The Public Theater in New York City presented a
musical adaptation of the play as part of their Shakespeare in the
Park programming. This production marked the first new
Shakespeare-based musical to be produced at the Delacorte Theater in
Central Park since the 1971 mounting of 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona'
with music by Galt MacDermot. The adaptation of 'Love's Labour's Lost'
featured a score by 'Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson' collaborators
Michael Friedman and Alex Timbers. Timbers also directed the
production, which starred Daniel Breaker, Colin Donnell, Rachel
Dratch, and Patti Murin, among others.
The 2004 ska musical 'The Big Life' is based on 'Love's Labour's
Lost', reworked to be about the Windrush generation arriving in
London.
Marc Palmieri's 2015 play 'The Groundling', a farce the 'New York
Times' referred to as "half comedy and half tragedy", was billed as a
"meditation on the meaning of the final moments of 'Love's Labour's
Lost'".
Film, television and radio
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Kenneth Branagh's 2000 film adaptation relocated the setting to the
1930s and attempted to make the play more accessible by turning it
into a musical. The film was a box office disappointment.
The play was one of the last works to be recorded for the BBC
Television Shakespeare project, broadcast in 1985. The production set
events in the eighteenth century, the costumes and sets being modeled
on the paintings of Jean-Antoine Watteau. This was the only instance
in the project of a work set in a period after Shakespeare's death.
The play is featured in an episode of the British TV show, 'Doctor
Who'. The episode, entitled 'The Shakespeare Code', focuses on
Shakespeare himself and a hypothetical follow-up play, 'Love's
Labour's Won', whose final scene is used as a portal for alien witches
to invade Earth. All copies of this play disappear along with the
witches.
BBC Radio 3 aired a radio adaptation on 16 December 1946, directed by
Noel Illif, with music by Gerald Finzi scored for a small chamber
orchestra. The cast included Paul Scofield. The music was subsequently
converted into an orchestral suite. BBC Radio 3 aired another radio
adaptation on 22 February 1979, directed by David Spenser, with music
by Derek Oldfield. The cast included Michael Kitchen as Ferdinand;
John McEnery as Berowne; Anna Massey as the Princess of France; Eileen
Atkins as Rosaline; and Paul Scofield as Don Adriano.
A modern-language adaptation of the play, titled 'Groups of Ten or
More People', was released online by Chicago-based company Littlebrain
Theatre in July 2020. This adaptation, set during the early days of
the COVID-19 pandemic, was filmed entirely over the digital
conferencing program Zoom.
Editions
==========
* Bate, Jonathan and Rasmussen, Eric (eds.) 'Love's Labour's Lost'
(The RSC Shakespeare; London: Macmillan, 2008)
* Arthos, John (ed.) 'Love's Labour's Lost' (Signet Classic
Shakespeare; New York: Signet, 1965; revised edition, 1988; 2nd
revised edition 2004)
* Carroll, William C. (ed.) 'Love's Labour's Lost' (The New Cambridge
Shakespeare; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)
* David, Richard T. (ed.) 'Love's Labour's Lost' (The Arden
Shakespeare, 2nd Series; London: Arden, 1951)
* Furness, H.H. (ed.) 'Love's Labour's Lost' (A New Variourm Edition
of Shakespeare; Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1904)
* Evans, G. Blakemore (ed.) 'The Riverside Shakespeare' (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1974; 2nd edn., 1997)
* Greenblatt, Stephen; Cohen, Walter; Howard, Jean E. and Maus,
Katharine Eisaman (eds.) 'The Norton Shakespeare: Based on the Oxford
Shakespeare' (London: Norton, 1997)
* Harbage, Alfred (ed.) 'Love's Labour's Lost' (The Pelican
Shakespeare; London: Penguin, 1963; revised edition 1973)
* Hart, H.C. (ed.) 'Love's Labour's Lost' (The Arden Shakespeare, 1st
Series; London: Arden, 1906)
* Hibbard, G.R. (ed.) 'Love's Labour's Lost' (The Oxford Shakespeare;
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990)
* Holland, Peter (ed.) 'Love's Labour's Lost' (The Pelican
Shakespeare, 2nd Edition; London: Penguin, 2000)
* Kerrigan, John (ed.) 'Love's Labour's Lost' (The New Penguin
Shakespeare; London: Penguin, 1982; revised edition 1996)
* Quiller-Couch, Arthur and Dover Wilson, John (eds.) 'Love's Labour'
Lost' (The New Shakespeare; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1923; 2nd edn. edited by Dover Wilson only, 1962)
* Walton, Nicholas (ed.) 'Love's Labour's Lost' (The New Penguin
Shakespeare 2nd edition; London: Penguin, 2005)
* Wells, Stanley; Taylor, Gary; Jowett, John and Montgomery, William
(eds.) 'The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works' (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1986; 2nd ed., 2005)
* Werstine, Paul and Mowat, Barbara A. (eds.) 'Love's Labour's Lost'
(Folger Shakespeare Library; Washington: Simon & Schuster, 1996)
*
External links
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*
*
*
* [
http://www.bl.uk/treasures/shakespeare/laboursbibs.html#first
'Love's Labour's Lost'] at British Library
*
[
https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-plays/loves-labours-lost/
'Love's Labour's Lost'] at Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
*
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=========
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Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love's_Labour's_Lost
