Love's Labour's Lost

William Shakespeare begins by introducing his protagonists, the King of Navarre, Berowne, and the other two Lords. These characters are based on figures from the French court at the time, who would have been recognizable to English audiences. Shakespeare flags their identities immediately, mentioning Navarre in Line 12 and the other three in Line 15, setting the scene for a contemporary courtly comedy referencing popular known figures.

Their discussion also represents up-to-date discourse for this period: In the King’s first speech, he describes their ascetic oath, forbidding love and seeking to overcome death through fame, achieved by learning. This combination of ideas reflects the different values and ideals that competed against each other in the Elizabethan period: a Humanist commitment to learning and engaging in the world, asceticism influenced by early Christian and post-Reformation Christian thinking, and the notion of chivalric or poetic love popularized in medieval literature, in which love gains romantic significance through its forbidden nature. Shakespeare sets the scene for the play to engage in current affairs and popular tropes, establishing the genre context for The Masculine Pursuit of Love that is prominent through the rest of the play.

This opening scene also establishes the central obstacle for the protagonists: They have sworn a vow they cannot keep. The impossibility of keeping this vow is apparent before they have all finished signing: Berowne points out that they will need to interact with the Princess of France in political negotiations. Shakespeare introduces the theme of Fantasy Versus Reality by suggesting that the Lords are indulging in a fantastical projection of their own nobility, which is at odds with the demands of the real world. The King’s hopes that they will become famous juxtaposes with his assertion that knowledge is valuable for its own sake, something Berowne picks up on, arguing that studying is a “vain” exercise, detracting from true knowledge: “Too much to know is to know naught but fame” (1.1.94).

Shakespeare also explores the theme of The Complexities of Language through the Lords’ discussion of the validity of the oath. Berowne initially refuses to sign, saying that his promise to agree to all the clauses was a joke. Shakespeare shows that language is fallible: It cannot necessarily be trusted, as its meaning can be retroactively denied. When faced with the Princess’s diplomatic visit, the King says this part of the oath will have to be waived out of necessity, to which Berowne points out that this excuse will similarly allow them to break the rest of the oath. Shakespeare shows that language can be used to excuse or rationalize an action, including to invalidate its own assurances. The King directly comments on Berowne’s use of language to undermine the value of language: “How well he’s read to reason against reading” (5.1.96).

This also establishes the linguistic wordplay that runs throughout Love’s Labour’s Lost. The King’s complex statement uses ironic humor, and is part of the verbal battling of wits that occurs throughout the play. The Lords are established as highly educated and articulate. This theme develops in the second scene as Mote and Armado banter, with Armado struggling to keep up. Shakespeare uses comedy to explore language as a tool with which someone can prove themselves or fail, a theme that reoccurs later in the ladies’ banter with the Lords and Boyet. Shakespeare gives Mote asides to the audience to place him on a level with them in their awareness of the dynamics, which invites the audience to join him in lampooning Armado, reflecting Mote’s linguistic superiority over him. This use of a meta-theatrical convention represents a self-aware use of language to explore its role in creating fantasy in the form of literature, jokes, or story-telling.

Shakespeare also uses this comic subplot to introduce the key theme of the male pursuit of love: Costard and Armado’s comically inept pursuit of Jaquenetta offers a humorous foundation for the development of this theme in the main plot in the next Act. Armado’s open self-importance comments on this, as he wants to hear about famous great men in love to compare himself to them. Through this comedic character, Shakespeare explicitly shows that the male pursuit of love is a vehicle for the pursuer to project an idealized, noble version of themselves, living out a fantasy. His attitude to Jaquenetta further highlights this: He calls her a “base wench” (5.2.59) and considers himself above her. His lack of respect for her undermines his apparent love for her, foreshadowing the darkly comic ending of this subplot later in Act V.