Love's Labour's Lost is one of
William Shakespeare's early comedies,
believed to have been written in the mid-1590s, and first published
in 1598.
Etymology
The name of the play comes from a poem written by the Greek
Theognis:
"To do good to one's enemies is 'love's labours
lost
."
Date and text
Most modern scholars believe the play was written in 1595 or 1596,
making it contemporaneous with
Romeo and Juliet and
A Midsummer Night's Dream.
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. The play next appeared in print in the
First Folio in 1623, with a later quarto in
1631.
Sources
Love's Labours Lost is, along with
The Tempest, a play without any obvious
sources.
Cymbeline falls into this category to some
extent, although that play draws strands of its narrative from some
texts agreed on by modern scholars. Some possible influences can be
found in the early plays of
John Lyly,
Robert Wilson's
The
Cobbler's Prophecy (c.1590) and
Pierre de la Primaudaye's
L'Academie française (1577).
Characters
Ferdinand: King of Navarre
Princess of France
Berowne (or Biron),
Longaville,
and
Dumaine (or Dumian): Lords, attending on the
King
Boyet and
Marcade (or Mercade):
Lords, attending on the Princess of France
Rosaline,
Maria, and
Katharine: Ladies, attending on the Princess
Don Adriano de Armado: a fantastical
Spaniard
Sir Nathaniel: a Curate
Holofernes: a Schoolmaster
Dull: a Constable
Costard: a Clown
Moth: Page to Armado
A Forester
Jaquenetta: a country Wench
Officers and Others, Attendants on the King and
Princess
Synopsis
play opens with the King of
Navarre
and three
noble companions, Berowne, Dumaine, and Longaville, taking an oath
to devote themselves to three years of study, promising not to give
in to the company of women — Berowne somewhat more hesitantly than
the others. Berowne reminds the king that the princess and her
three ladies are coming to the kingdom and it was suicidal for the
King to agree to this law. The King denies what Berowne says,
insisting that the ladies make their camp in the field outside of
his court. The King and his men comically fall in love with the
princess and her ladies.
The main story is assisted by many other humorous sub-plots. A
rather heavy-accented Spanish swordsman, Don Adriano de Armado,
tries and fails to woo a country wench, Jaquenetta, helped by Moth,
his page, and rivaled by
Costard, a country
idiot. We are also introduced to two scholars, Holofernes and Sir
Nathaniel, and we see them converse with each other in schoolboy
Latin. In the final act, the comic characters perform a play to
entertain the nobles, an idea conceived by Holofernes, where they
represent the
Nine Worthies. The four
Lords — as well as the Ladies' manservant Boyet — mock the play,
and Armado and Costard almost come to blows.
At the end of this 'play' within the play, there is a bitter twist
in the story. News arrives that the Princess's father has died and
she must leave to take the throne. The king and his nobles swear to
remain faithful to their ladies, but the ladies, unconvinced that
their love is that strong, claim that the men must wait a whole
year and a day to prove what they say is true. This is an unusual
ending for Shakespeare and Elizabethan comedy. A play mentioned by
Francis Meres,
Love's Labour's Won, is sometimes
believed to be a sequel to this play.
Performance
The earliest recorded performance of the play occurred at Christmas
time in 1597 at Court before Queen
Elizabeth. A second recorded
performance occurred in the first half of January 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 a Covent
Garden
version in 1839, with Elizabeth Vestris as
Rosaline.
Reputation
Love's Labour's Lost is often thought of as Shakespeare's
most flamboyantly intellectual play. It abounds in sophisticated
wordplay, puns, and literary allusions and is filled with clever
pastiches of contemporary poetic forms. It is often assumed that it
was written for performance at the
Inns of
Court, whose students would have been most likely to appreciate
its style. This style is the principal reason why it has never been
among Shakespeare's most popular plays; the pedantic humour makes
it extremely inaccessible to contemporary theatregoers.
Adaptations and cultural references
Fiction
Thomas Mann in his novel
Doctor Faustus (1943) has the fictional
German composer Adrian Leverkühn write an opera on
Love's
Labour's Lost.
Film
Kenneth Branagh's 2000 film
relocated the setting to the 1930s and attempted to make the play
more accessible by turning it into a
musical. However, the film was a box office and
critical failure.
Music
Gerald Finzi wrote incidental music to
the play Love's Labour's Lost for a BBC live radio broadcast of the
play in 1946. The music was subsequently converted into an
orchestral suite.
Television
The play and its apocryphal sequel,
Love's Labour's Won, are featured
in a
Doctor Who episode,
"
The Shakespeare Code".A
reference to the play is found in the title of
Futurama episode 104,
Love's Labours Lost in
Space.
Radio
BBC Radio 3. Aired 16 December 1946Director: Noel Illif.Music by
Gerald FinziCast:
Paul Scofield, Thea Holme, Robert Marsden,
Ernest Milton, others.
Radio adaptation of the Shakespeare play. A written transcript of
the production is held at the Birmingham Central Library as part of
their Shakespeare Collection. Gerald Finzi's Love's Labour's Lost
Suite had its origins in this performance. "The small-scale radio
context meant that it was originally scored for a small chamber
orchestra." -Julie Sanders, Shakespeare and Music: Afterlives and
Borrowings, Cambridge, UK 2007.
BBC Radio 3. Aired 22 Feb 1979.Director: David SpenserMusic:
Derek OldfieldCast:
Michael Kitchen-Ferdinand, King of Navarre;
John McEnery- Berowne;
Anna Massey Princess of France;
Eileen Atkins- Rosaline;
Paul Scofield- Don Adriano de Armado; Andrew
Branch-Dumaine; Christopher Biggins Anthony-Dull; Clifford
Abrahams-Moth; Clifford Rose-Nathaniel; Denise Coffey-Jaquenetta;
Elizabeth Proud-Maria; Eric Allan-Monsieur Marcade; Frances
Jeater-Katherine; Jeremy Clyde-Longaville; John Baddeley-Costard,
John Rye-Boyet; Robert Stephens-Holofernes
See also
Note
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