Love's Labour's Lost
Love's Labour's Lost is one of William Shakespeare's early comedies.
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.[1] 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 Labour's 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. "Love's Labour's Lost", widely thought of as the first work of Shakespeare's genius, was a new departure from his established modes of writing. 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 "Le Academie francaise" (1577).
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.[2]
Synopsis
The 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 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 they live a little far from the palace. The King and his men comically fall in love with the princess and her ladies.
The main story is assisted by many other funny 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 Costard, a country idiot. We are also introduced to two scholars: Holofernes and Sir Nathaniel, we have seen them converse with each other in schoolboy Latin. In the final act, the comic characters perform a play to entertain the nobles.
At the end of this 'play' in the play, after this 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 supposed to be a sequel to this play.[3]
Reputation
Love's Labours 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 failure. Main article: Love's Labour's Lost (2000 film)
See also
Note
- ^ Woudhuysen, H. R., ed. Love's Labour's Lost (London: Arden Shakespeare, 1998): 59.
- ^ F. E. Halliday, A Shakespeare Companion 1564-1964, Baltimore, Penguin, 1964; pp. 288-89.
- ^ Knutson, Roslynn, The Repertory of Shakespeare's Company, 1594-1613 (Fayatteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1991): 75.
External links
- Complete Text of Love's Labour's Lost at MIT
- Loues Labour's lost - HTML version of this title.
- Loves Labour Lost - plain vanilla text from Project Gutenberg
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