A Brief Introduction to Love’s Labor’s Lost
We meet the cast and receive a synopsis of the play. (Plus a bonus poll!)
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Love’s Labor’s Lost
By William Shakespeare
Edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine
with Michael Poston and Rebecca Niles
Characters in the Play
KING of Navarre, also known as Ferdinand
Lords attending the King:
BEROWNE
LONGAVILLE
DUMAINE
The PRINCESS of France
Ladies attending the Princess:
ROSALINE
MARIA
KATHERINE
BOYET, a lord attending the Princess
ARMADO, the BRAGGART, also known as Don Adriano de Armado
BOY, Armado’s PAGE, also known as MOTE
JAQUENETTA, the WENCH
COSTARD, the CLOWN or SWAIN
DULL, the CONSTABLE
HOLOFERNES, the PEDANT, or schoolmaster
NATHANIEL, the CURATE
FORESTER
MONSIEUR MARCADE, a messenger from France
Lords, Blackamoors, Musicians
ATTENTION: Spoilers beyond this point! If you are reading Love’s Labor’s Lost for the first time and would like to do so with no prior information about this play, stop reading here!
Synopsis
In Love’s Labor’s Lost, the comedy centers on four young men who fall in love against their wills. The men, one of them the king of Navarre, pledge to study for three years, avoiding all contact with women. When the Princess of France arrives on a state visit, the king insists she and her ladies camp outside the court. Even so, each young man falls in love with one of the ladies.
Meanwhile, Don Armado, a Spanish soldier, falls for a servant girl, Jacquenetta. Costard, an illiterate local, mixes up two letters he is to deliver, one from Armado to Jacquenetta and the other from Berowne, one of the king’s companions, to Rosaline, one of the French ladies.
The men confess they are in love, and devise a pageant for the ladies, who set a trap for them by exchanging identifying markers. When word comes that the princess’s father is dead, the ladies reject the men’s proposals as rash and impose a year’s delay before any further wooing.
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