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    Love's Labours Lost
    Love's Labours Lost
    Love's Labours Lost
    Ebook158 pages1 hour

    Love's Labours Lost

    By William Shakespeare

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Read & Co. Classics presents this new beautiful edition of William Shakespeare's comedy, "Love’s Labour's Lost". Featuring a specially commissioned new biography of William Shakespeare, it is a must for Shakespeare enthusiasts and newcomers alike. “Love’s Labour’s Lost”, revolves around Ferdinand, King of Navarre, and his three companions, who enter a pact in which they swear to avoid women for three years. This oath is tested to its limits when the Princess of France arrives with her company of ladies. The young men subsequently lose their resolves, resulting in an unexpected, comical twist. William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is considered to be the greatest writer in the English language and is celebrated as the world's most famous dramatist.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateAug 17, 2018
    ISBN9781528785587
    Love's Labours Lost
    Author

    William Shakespeare

    William Shakespeare was born in April 1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, on England’s Avon River. When he was eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway. The couple had three children—an older daughter Susanna and twins, Judith and Hamnet. Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, died in childhood. The bulk of Shakespeare’s working life was spent in the theater world of London, where he established himself professionally by the early 1590s. He enjoyed success not only as a playwright and poet, but also as an actor and shareholder in an acting company. Although some think that sometime between 1610 and 1613 Shakespeare retired from the theater and returned home to Stratford, where he died in 1616, others believe that he may have continued to work in London until close to his death.

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    Reviews for Love's Labours Lost

    3.5/5

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    • 2/5
      Eh, not a big fan of The Bard's comedies. The bulk of them come across as a Three's Company episode with better dialogue.

      Love's Labour's Lost is a particularly confused mess. The men declare themselves uninterested in women, then lose their minds over the first women they see, many of whom they admit are not that attractive. The women are keen to meet the men, then rebuff and humiliate them at every turn, then agree to accept their attentions after a suitable period of mourning/penance has passed. The whole situation is patently a platform on which to stage battles of wits, and those neither scintillating nor scathing.

      This is compounded by the puerile interpretations of the Norton editor, one Walter Cohen, who insists that the play is a homoerotic and scatological triumph. Every occurrence of the word "loose" or "end" has a chuckling gloss denoting "ass" or "anus" or "scatological". When "enigma" is misconstrued by a character to be "an egma", it is insisted that "egma" is "enema", and that "salve" is "an anal salvo discharged from the male". Within three lines, the word "goose" is assumed to refer to "prostitute", "a victim of veneral disease", and "buttocks". And all that is just one page from scene 3.1. It gets a bit tiresome.
    • 5/5
      After seeing the fantastic Shakespeare in the Park original musical adaptation, I decided to read the play itself. The Shakespeare in the Park version interspersed modern lyrics with the original lines in a way that complemented both--and told a psychologically modern story that was set among recent college graduates getting back together again--and falling in love, interspersed with some of the more over-the-top satiric characters. It was hard to believe that the play itself could read anything like that adaptation. But, of course, it did.

      Love's Labor's Lost is about a King and his followers that take a vow to retreat from women to study for three years, a princess and her followers who come upon them and disrupt the vow, and what happens after. The romantic comedy between Berowne and Rosaline drives much of the plot and is up there with the best of Shakespeare's witty, romantic repartee.
    • 4/5
      Bizarre, yet entertaining story of men who renounce the company of women, then are quickly forsworn.
    • 2/5
      You know what I'm not crazy about? Shakespeare's comedies
    • 4/5
      Love's Labour's Lost is one of Shakespeare's comedies, despite its unique ending in which none of the lovers are conveniently married off, and the men are instead ordered to a year's worth of abstinence to prove their devotion to the women. The ending echoes the opening of the play in a bitterly amusing way: at the start of the play, the men have sworn off women and dissolute living for three years, to improve their minds, and at the end of the play they swear to be faithful for a year and a day (in other words, no women) to prove the constancy of their loves. Will they abide by the second promise, when they were unable to keep the first? The doubt surrounding this proposition closes the play on a jarring note.

      I started with the ending, so let me retrace my steps and explain the premise of the story. The King of Navarre and this three companions have taken an oath to perform three years of study and fasting, abstaining from women to keep their minds clear. One of the men, Berowne, skeptically observes that none of them has the endurance, but he reluctantly agrees. Enter the women: the Princess from France arrives for some political parley, along with her three women companions. The men immediately fall in love; fortunately, each man falls in love with a separate lady in the group. Without any hesitation, they throw aside their oath. In a scene that is replete with wonderful dramatic irony, each man comes out, one at a time, to confess in a soliloquy that he will pursue his new love, while at least one other man is hiding in the wings, eavesdropping. The King overhears the confessions of the others, and rebukes them for breaking their oath, before Berowne points out that he heard the King himself betray their earlier promise, and so they all have a good laugh at each other. They decide to court the ladies in disguise. Boyet, one of the men attending the Princess, overhears their plans and tells the female visitors. Not only are they a little indignant at this turn of events - the King had earlier refused them admittance into the Court, due to his oath, forcing them to camp outside - they are also contemptuous of how easily the men break their promises and of the foolish way they hope to woo them. To repay them for these issues, the women devise their own plot. They will also wear disguises, professing to be someone else, and force the men to court the wrong woman.

      As Shakespeare's women are so often the more clever gender, the plan goes exactly the way the women wish it to. The King and his entourage humbly apologize, and after some playful bickering, all turns out well, for it seems that the women have also fallen in love, each with the man that is most partial to her. This type of miraculous coincidence is to be expected in a comedy, where even fate and destiny work for the eventual good of the characters. Indeed, the story seems headed to the conventional marriage and celebration, when the festive events are interrupted with somber news. The Princess's father has died, and she must return home to mourn for the required year.
    • 4/5
      A king and his gentlemen vow to remain celibate, studious and moderate in their habits for three years to improve their minds. They have signed their names to this vow. Oops! They forgot that an embassy from France was due soon, consisting of a princess and her ladies! Shenanigans ensue. And wordplay, such wordplay!

      What seemed at first a fairly shallow and cynical plot, developed by the end to be a story of depth. No fools these women, they understood these men better than the men understood themselves, and called them on their foolishness. Shakespeare leaves the ending undecided, as the twelve month penance the men are given by the women is "too long for a play."
    • 4/5
      I was surprised to say I quite liked William Shakespeare's "Love's Labors Lost." Knowing that it isn't often performed today (and that my local library didn't even have a copy of this one,) I really didn't have high expectations. I found it an entertaining, though sometimes challenging read.

      "Love's Labors Lost" is essentially a romantic comedy. The King of Navarre and his courtiers pledge to dedicate themselves to study for the next three years and forsake all women... of course a bevy of beauties immediately emerge to challenge that notion. The play is typical Shakespeare -- word play, messages misdelivered, disguises and people switching places. I'm sure a lot of the puns were lost on me, but I still enjoyed the ones I got.

      While this definitely isn't one of Shakespeare's best, I did find it fun overall.
    • 5/5
      The 2000 film of this play got me in trouble because I was laughing so loudly at Shakespeare; I was told after the film, "Everybody in this room HATES you." (Guess Americans are not s'posed to laugh at Great Drama--or poetry, either.)
      Arguably Shakespeare's most Shakespearean play, or interplay: the exchanges of wit, what he would have overheard at Middle Temple and among his fellow actors. Rather than the text, I'll comment on Branagh's musical version, with himself as Berowne and Director, Scorsese as producer. It's hilarious, especially for a Shakespearean; I laughed throughout so much (my laugh scares babies) one lady in the audience 25 came up to me after the film to kindly inform, "Everybody in this room HATES you." I thanked her for the admonition.
      Very slow, stagey opening lines by the Prince. Dunno why. They cut the poetry criticism, and substitute the American songbook--Gershwin, Berlin--for poems. The Don Armado stuff (with Moth his sidekick) is broad, not literary: mustachioed, funny body, melancholy humor. Armado's the most overwritten love-letter, parodying catechism; but he is standard Plautine Braggart Soldier ("Miles Gloriosus") by way of commedia dell'arte. Then the Plautine Pedant (commedia Dottore) Holofernia crosses gender, a female professor type. Costard wears a suit, maybe a Catskills standup.
      Branagh cuts the Russian (or fake-Russian) lingo, "muoosa-Cargo" of the masked entrance.
      Wonderful 30's film cliches: female swimmers, the dance scenes, the prop plane's night takeoff. Ends with WWII, grainy newsreel footage of the year, after news of the French Princess's father's death.
      Berowne (pronounced .."oon") is sentenced privately "to move wild laughter in the throat of death…" His judge, Rosaline, points out the Bard' instruction on jokes: "A jest's prosperity lies in the ear / Of him that hears it, never in the tongue / Of him that makes it" (V.end). LLL ends with death and winter (the Russian an intimation?): "When icicles hang by the wall,/ And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,/ And Tom bears logs into the hall,/ And milk comes frozen home in pails.." and the owl talks, "Tu-whit..Tu whoo, a merry note/ While greasy Joan doth keel the pot." That's the European Tawny Owl (male and female must combine for it) so an American director might replace with the same prosody, "Who cooks for youuu?"(the Barred Owl).
      In the penultimate scene, Dull is onstage the whole scene nere speaking a word until Holofernes says, "Thou hast spoken no word the while," to which Dull, "Nor understood none neither, sir."
      Well, no wonder, if he has no Latin, for Costard offers, "Go to, thou has it AD dunghill…as they say." Hol, "Oh, I smell false Latin--dunghill for UNGUEM." The Bard kindly explains the Latin joke, essential for modern American readers.
      Incidentally, Berowne uses Moliere-like rhymed couplets in his social satire on Boyet, V.ii.315ff. His most daring rhymes, "sing/ushering" and maybe "debt/Boyet."
    • 4/5
      I’m normally a big fan of Shakespeare’s plays, and while I enjoyed parts of this one, it still fell a bit flat for me. The King of Navarre and three of his friends decide they will swear off women and other temptations for three years while they focus on their studies. Of course they decide to do this shortly before the Princess of France and her friends are about to visit. No sooner is the vow made than all four men are swooning over the lovely ladies.

      There are some really funny parts, like when the men try to hold each other to their vow while at the same time writing love letters to their new crushes. As with all of Shakespeare’s comedies, hidden identities and witty dialogue confound the characters as they find themselves unexpectedly falling in love.

      **SPOILERS**

      The play ends with a bit of an unusual cliff hanger. The lovers are all separated when the Princess must return to rule France after hearing of her father’s unexpected death. There is a theory that a sequel to the play existed but there are no surviving copies. The play “Love’s Labour’s Won” is mentioned in other texts from around the same time and it could have been the sequel that resolved the lovers’ future.

      **SPOILERS OVER**

      BOTTOM LINE: This isn’t one of the Bard’s strongest plays, but if you’re already a fan then it’s worth reading. If not, start with one of his better comedies, like Twelfth Night, As You Like It or Much Ado About Nothing.

      “He hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink.”

      “As sweet and musical
      As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair;
      And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods
      Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.” 

    Book preview

    Love's Labours Lost - William Shakespeare

    1.png

    LOVE'S

    LABOUR'S LOST

    By

    WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

    LOVE'S

    LABOUR'S LOST

    A Comedy

    By

    WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

    First published in 1598

    This edition is published by Classic Books Library

    an imprint of Read Books Ltd.

    Copyright © 2018 Read Books Ltd.

    This book is copyright and may not be

    reproduced or copied in any way without

    the express permission of the publisher in writing

    British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

    A catalogue record for this book is available

    from the British Library

    Contents

    William Shakespeare

    DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

    ACT I.

    SCENE I. The King of Navarre's Park.

    SCENE II. The Park.

    ACT II.

    SCENE I. The King of Navarre's Park. A Pavilion and Tents at a Distance.

    ACT III.

    SCENE I. The King of Navarre's Park.

    ACT IV.

    SCENE I. The King of Navarre's Park.

    SCENE II. The Same.

    SCENE III. The Same.

    ACT V.

    SCENE I. The King of Navarre's Park.

    SCENE II. The Same. Before the Princess's Pavilion.

    TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED THE AUTHOR, MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

    By BEN JONSON

    William Shakespeare

    William Shakespeare, as any reader of this book will presumably know, was an English poet, playwright and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language - and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Referred to as England's national poet, and the 'Bard of Avon', his extant works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, (some with unconfirmed authorship). Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about matters as wide ranging as his physical appearance, sexuality and religious beliefs.

    William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer. He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised there on 26th April 1564. His actual date of birth remains unknown, but is traditionally observed on 23rd April, Saint George's Day. Although no attendance records for the period survive, biographers agree that Shakespeare was probably educated at the King's New School in Stratford, a free school chartered in 1553, about a quarter-mile from his home. Grammar schools varied in quality during the Elizabethan era, but grammar school curricula were largely similar. Basic Latin education had been standardised by royal decree, and the school would have provided an intensive education in grammar based upon Latin classical authors.

    At the age of eighteen, Shakespeare married the twenty-six year old Anne Hathaway (who was pregnant at the time), with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins, Hamnet and Judith. After the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592. The exception is the appearance of his name in the 'complaints bill' of a law case before the Queen's Bench court at Westminster, dated Michaelmas Term 1588 and 9th October 1589. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. By 1598, his name had become enough of a selling point to appear on the title pages.

    Shakespeare continued to act in his own and in other plays after his success as a playwright. The 1616 edition of Ben Jonson's Works names him on the cast lists for Every Man in His Humour (1598) and Sejanus His Fall (1603). During this time, Shakespeare divided his time between London and Stratford, and in 1596 bought ‘New Place’ as his family home in Stratford, whilst retaining a property in Bishopsgate, North of the river Thames. He moved across the river to Southwark by 1599, the year his company constructed the Globe Theatre there. By 1604, Shakespeare had moved north of the river again, to an area north of St Paul's Cathedral with many fine houses. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at the age of forty-nine, where he died three years later.

    Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. The first recorded works of Shakespeare are Richard III and the three parts of Henry VI, written in the early 1590s during a vogue for historical drama. Shakespeare's plays are difficult to date however, and studies of the texts suggest that Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew and The Two Gentlemen of Verona may also belong to Shakespeare's earliest period. Shakespeare's early classical and Italianate comedies, containing tight double plots and precise comic sequences, give way in the mid-1590s to the romantic atmosphere of his greatest comedies. A Midsummer Night's Dream, one of his earliest comedies, is a witty mixture of romance, fairy magic, and comic lowlife scenes. The wit and wordplay of Much Ado About Nothing, the charming rural setting of As You Like It, and the lively merrymaking of Twelfth Night complete the sequence of great comedies.

    Shakespeare then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608. Many critics believe that his greatest tragedies represent the peak of his art. The titular hero of one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies, Hamlet, has probably been discussed more than any other character, especially for his famous soliloquy beginning; ‘To be or not to be; that is the question.’ Unlike the introverted Hamlet, whose fatal flaw is hesitation, the heroes of the tragedies that followed, Othello and King Lear, are undone by hasty errors of judgement. In Othello, the villain Iago stokes Othello's sexual jealousy to the point where he murders the innocent wife who loves him. In King Lear, the old king commits the tragic error of giving up his powers, initiating the events which lead to the torture and blinding of the Earl of Gloucester and the murder of Lear's youngest daughter Cordelia. According to the critic Frank Kermode, ‘the play-offers neither its good characters nor its audience any relief from its cruelty.’ In Macbeth, the shortest and most compressed of Shakespeare's tragedies, uncontrollable ambition incites Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, to murder the rightful king and usurp the throne, until their own guilt destroys them in turn. His last major tragedies, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus, contain some of Shakespeare's finest poetry.

    Many of Shakespeare’s plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. His sonnets were published as a collection in 1609. Scholars are not certain when each of the 154 sonnets was composed, but evidence suggests that Shakespeare wrote poetry throughout his career for a private readership. In 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell, two friends and fellow actors of Shakespeare, published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's. It was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which Shakespeare is hailed, presciently, as ‘not of an age, but for all time.’ Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but

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