Love's Labour's Lost
Roger Peters Copyright © 2002
So far, in this presentation of the philosophy in Shakespeare�s poems and
plays the examination of the two long poems shows they were formative
essays for the definitive philosophy presented later in the Sonnets of 1609.
There is a striking consistency between the content of the long poems,
written early in his career as a dramatist, and the 1609 Sonnets.
In the two long poems, Shakespeare took the opportunity provided by
the plague around 1593 to trial an expression of the philosophy behind the
plays of 1590-2. When the theatres reopened, he returned to writing plays
for the Chamberlain�s Men and wrote no other poems the length of Venus
and Adonis (1194 lines) and Lucrece (1855 lines). The only other published
poems aside from the Sonnets were the much shorter The Phoenix and the
Turtle (67 lines) of 1601, and A Lover�s Complaint (329 lines), which was
included with the Sonnets. Even though they were much shorter than the
poems of the early 1590s, the commentaries in this volume show both the
later poems are based on the Sonnet philosophy.
As there were a number of sonnet sequences published in the early to
mid-1590s, it is reasonable to suggest Shakespeare thought of writing his
philosophy out in a dedicated set of sonnets around that time. But, because
he recommitted to writing plays for the theatre, the Sonnet project was not
completed until 1609. So it seems likely he decided to trial the philosophy
in a purpose-made play. His practice up to that time and after was to adapt
a source play or story to his philosophic ends, but his experience with
exploring the philosophy in the long poems could easily have inspired him
to base the philosophy in a play of his own devising.
The only play of the period with no known source is Love�s Labour�s Lost.
It was first published as a quarto edition in 1598, and was the first play
published under Shakespeare�s name. Because it was �newly corrected and
augmented� for the 1598 edition, it was probably written between 1595 and
1597. So it is ideally placed to be a play in which Shakespeare further experimented
with an expression of his philosophy, but in this case within the
constraints of drama for entertainment.
The expression of the philosophy in Love�s Labour�s Lost provides an
insight into the state of development of Shakespeare�s philosophy in the mid-
1590s, and also provides a lesson on the difficulties of writing a play to
express a philosophy of deep logic with its devastating critique of traditional
thought. Shakespeare was not to repeat the experiment in a play even though
he continued to use the philosophy to create plays to unprecedented effect.
His decision to articulate the philosophy in a set of sonnets freed the plays
to develop their dramatic intensity and theatrical effect.
The uniqueness of Love�s Labour�s Lost in Shakespeare�s oeuvre, because
of its undramatic storyline and because of the intensity of the wordplay, led
to a performance history in which it was ignored for 200 years. Pedantic
critics such as Samuel Johnson took advantage of its difficulty to exercise
their prudery and Christian intolerance. It was performed infrequently in
the nineteenth century and occasionally in the early twentieth century until
in the mid-twentieth century it was given a number of performances.
Features that had previously alienated critics and editors now captured the
interest of a twentieth-century audience. Commentators have attributed its
recent popularity to the influence of authors such as James Joyce and to a
society less constrained by the inadequate doctrines of the Churches and
the prejudices of male-based politics.
Love�s Labour�s Lost is the third work for consideration in this volume
because it was most likely written specifically after the two long poems to
express the philosophy. No commentator has written a study of the play that
is able to account for the logical relation between the four Lords of Navarre
and the four Ladies of the French court, who make a mockery of the idealistic
pretensions of their male counterparts. As even Joyce had a simplistic
understanding of Shake-speares Sonnets, it is not surprising there has been no
appreciation of the play�s philosophic content.
Love�s Labour�s Lost appeared once in a quarto edition during
Shakespeare�s lifetime and then in the 1623 Folio. Because there are differences
between the two editions, when the distinctions are critical the quarto
is referred here to as Q and the Folio as F.
Analysis of Love's Labour's Lost
The Sonnet philosophy establishes the priority of Nature over mindcreated
entities such as the Christian God, and establishes the priority of
the female over the male. It is not surprising then, that Love�s Labour�s Lost
begins with an avowal of the basic conceits of male-based beliefs by a male
King. Ferdinand, the King of Navarre, attempts to convince his friends to
withdraw from everyday life to benefit from uninterrupted study.
Shakespeare begins by parodying the conceits of celibacy and monastic
withdrawal.
Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
Live registered upon our brazen tombs,
And then grace us in the disgrace of death:
When spite of cormorant devouring Time,
Th�endeavour of this present breath may buy:
That honour which shall bate his scythe�s keen edge,
And make us heirs of all eternity. (1.1.5-11)
Ferdinand�s desire for eternal �fame� (�fame� is the first noun in the first
line) turns to eternal infamy by the end of the play. His hope that monastic
�endeavours� will give �grace� to counter the �disgrace of death� is an offence
to natural logic. His desire to cheat �Time� with �honour� by spurning the
logic of Nature that requires humankind to increase, will ironically make
him and his Lords �heirs� to their own prejudices.
In the first few lines, Shakespeare parodies the expectation of an afterlife
of eternal happiness with the Judeo/Christian God. In the Sonnet
philosophy the logical way to eternity for human beings is through
increase, and the way to appreciate the logic of increase is to accept the
priority of the female over the male. The priority of Nature and increase
over human understanding forms the logical backbone for the play.
The King identifies the Lords� �own affections� and the �world�s desires�
as the enemies of his monastic crusade. To establish the �academe� the Lords
swear �deep oaths� that they will remain for three years �still and contemplative
in living art�. The opening passage recalls the contradictory expectations
held by the idealistic adolescent Adonis in Venus and Adonis, and the
proud and possessive Collatine and Tarquin in Lucrece.
Throughout the Mistress sonnets that examine the logic of truth (sonnets
137 to 152), the nature of swearing and breaking oaths receives close
attention. The �perjured eye� (152.13) is the �eye� that is forsworn from the
sexual eye of increase and so from Nature. Shakespeare reveals the idealistic
conceit in Ferdinand�s programme by having him claim that the still and
contemplative life would produce a �living art�.
Longaville and Dumaine, as faithful Lords to the King, second his idealistic
expectations. Through their responses Shakespeare identifies the crux
of the philosophical contradiction he addresses in the course of the play.
Longaville expresses the illogical relation between the �mind� and the �body�
on which traditional logic is based.
The mind shall banquet, though the body pine. (1.1.29)
And Dumaine, who avows to �die� rather than �love�, believes he does
so,
With all these living in Philosophy. (1.1.36)
The King and his two dutiful Lords believe that by entering the monastic
life they can assert the priority of the mind over the body to create a �living
Philosophy�. Shakespeare could hardly be clearer in identifying the target of
his attack. He wants to correct the central �problem� of traditional
philosophy, the �mind/body� problem, and demonstrate that a living
philosophy is one that respects the natural logic of life. The �Philosophy�
proposed by the Lords, in conformity with biblical-based apologetics, is the
deathly idealistic rhetoric of the Academy of Plato and the fathers of the
Church.
Shakespeare gives the fourth Lord, Berowne, the role of identifying the
inconsistencies in his colleagues� conceits. Unlike the others he speaks as a
male in touch with his female side. For the purposes of the play he is not
sufficiently aware of Shakespeare�s ruling logic to articulate precisely the
nature of the contradictions. That role is given to the four Ladies of France
and their male companion Boyet.
Berowne objects to the King�s provision that they not �see a woman in the
term� of their �strict observances�. Alluding to the increase argument of the
Sonnets, he argues that �not to see Ladies� is a �barren task�. He asks, �what is the
end of study?�To which the King responds that it is to �know�what otherwise
would not be known. Berowne tests the King by asking if he means,
Things hid and barred (you mean) from common sense. (1.1.62)
To which the King replies.
Ay, that is study�s god-like recompense. (1.1.63)
The two lines define the difference between Shakespeare�s natural
philosophy, which moves from common sense to a consistent understanding
of truth and beauty, and traditional philosophical apologetics, which begins
with god-like claims and ends in contradiction with common sense.
In a speech in which he agrees to study with the King, Berowne parodies
the vain expectations of the Lords. He will study to �dine� where he is
forbidden to �feast� or, more significantly,
study where to meet some Mistress fine
Where Mistresses from common sense are hid. (1.1.68-9)
He will willingly join an academy if a finer Mistress than the Mistresses
of common sense could be produced. He taunts the King to produce an
idealised woman, (such as the Virgin Mary), who would more than
compensate for the absence of the Mistresses from everyday life. �Mistress�
is the form of address Shakespeare uses exclusively for the female in the
Sonnets. In both the play and the Sonnets, the word Mistress is capitalised.
In the Sonnets, because the Mistress is the repository of common sense prior
to any form of idealised female, the idealised female is a consequence of
adolescent male fantasy.
The King, as a blinded ideologue, misses the irony when he agrees with
Berowne�s tongue-in-cheek suggestion.
These be the stops that hinder study quite,
And train our intellects to vain delight. (1.1.75-6)
Berowne takes the King�s at his unintentional pun on �vain� and plays
upon the vanity of the Lords.
Why? All delights are vain, and that most vain
Which with pain purchased, doth inherit pain,
As painfully to pore upon a Book,
To seek the light of truth, while truth the while
Doth falsely blind the eye-sight of his look: (1.1.77-81)
In the Sonnets, truth is the dynamic of language in which there is a
continual jar between right and wrong. In sonnet 66, Shakespeare distinguishes
the logical use of the word �truth� from the idealistic �simple-Truth
miscalled simplicity� (66.11). Berowne makes the same point. To study
expecting to find an ultimate truth is contradictory because truth is a
dynamic between the true and the false. Only sensations can be singular (or
�beauty� as sensations are called in the Sonnets).
If the Lords expect to �seek the light of truth� in a �Book�, then the
�truth� they seek will �blind their eyesight� from the understanding of life
because they misrepresent both truth and beauty. If �light seeks light� or
sensation seeks sensation, sensation will �beguile� sensation because sensations
alone do not provide understanding. (Samuel Johnson, viewing
Shakespeare�s works from the disadvantage of his Christian paradigm,
despised this line.)
Berowne then introduces the logical function of the �eyes�. The Sonnets
have been completely misunderstood for 400 years partly because the role
of the eyes expressed in sonnet 14 has not been appreciated. Yet, Berowne
gives voice to the dynamic in the first scene of the first act of the play.
Light seeking light, doth light of light beguile:
So ere you find where light in darkness lies,
Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.
Study me how to please the eye indeed,
By fixing it upon a fairer eye
Who dazzling so, that eye should be his heed,
And give him light that it was blinded by. (1.1.82-8)
In the Sonnets, it is from the eyes of the youth that the Poet derives truth
and beauty. By ignoring the logic of the eyes, the King and his colleagues
lose their eyes or the principal organs of sensation and discrimination. If
Berowne is to study to please the eye, then he will �fix it upon a fairer eye�,
or the sexual eye, because only that eye can be his �heed� to �give him light�.
If he was to study with the Lords, he could not search deeply with �saucy
looks� because he would be blinded by the glory of the sun, or their overidealised
conceits.
...continued in Volume 3, William Shakespeare's Sonnet Philosophy
Back to Top
Roger Peters Copyright © 2002
Introduction
Venus and Adonis
The Rape of Lucrece
Love's Labour's Lost
The Phoenix and the Turtle
Measure for Measure
Macbeth
A Lover's Complaint
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