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A review by gsanta1
Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare
2.0
This was the worst Shakespeare I’ve read so far.
(A side note, I put this on my TBR list in 2017! 5 years ago!)
I can see what Shakespeare was going for, but it wasn’t good.
The set-up was simple enough: three straight men make oaths of celibacy right before female delegates arrive.
But that’s it. That’s the plot. you forget, sometimes how simple the plot of Shakespeare’s plays are.
There’s a weak sort of costume disguise scene in Act 5 scn 2, which is way too late for anything interesting to develop. And the female group uncovers there disguise immediately so there’s no confusion or miscommunication or mistakes.
How can you have a comedy without mistakes?
You have one misplaced letter but it doesn’t have any real consequences.
Costard makes a decent idiot, but he only gets one scene.
There’s no mess and I think that’s the problem. The good Shakespeare comedies are messy and confusing and then everything gets cleared up at the end.
And then the ending is strange, because it’s a deferral. It’s not a sad ending and it’s not a happy ending, but a set up for a sequel.
I think it can only be considered a comedy because of the banter.
There’s lots of meaningless puns and bantering and faux misinterpretation between the male group and female group.
Honestly, I can’t remember one exchange.
Boyet.
But to speak that in words which his eye hath disclos’d.
I only have made a mouth of his eye,
By adding a tongue which I know will not lie.
…..
Arm. Call’st thou my love “hobby-horse”?
Moth. No, master, the hobby-horse is but a colt, [aside] and your love perhaps a hackney.—But have you forgot your love?
Arm. Almost I had.
Moth. Negligent student, learn her by heart.
Arm. By heart and in heart, boy.
Moth. And out of heart, master; all those three I will prove.
Arm. What wilt thou prove?
…
etc.etc.
I can do that too.
and two can I do but one is true.
But can two be true with one false trooth?
Speaketh one false trooth makes one false mouth.
false mouths make false tooths and two truths makes one loose in trooth.
etc.
I mean, in the beginning, there was something about a trade with the French king or a debt he needed to pay. Was that resolved at some point? I don’t even know.
——————Edit——————
It’s interesting to me that we still do the same kind of comedy nowadays.
I just watched Groucho Marx on the Dick Cavett show in 1969 and he had a joke that went like this:
“I was in the elevator at the hotel the other day with a priest, and this priest said to me, ‘Aren’t you Groucho Marx?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’
He says, ‘Gee, my mother’s crazy about you.’
And I said, ‘Really? I didn’t know you fathers had mothers.’
Vaudeville and Shakespeare seem to have a lot in common.
(A side note, I put this on my TBR list in 2017! 5 years ago!)
I can see what Shakespeare was going for, but it wasn’t good.
The set-up was simple enough: three straight men make oaths of celibacy right before female delegates arrive.
But that’s it. That’s the plot. you forget, sometimes how simple the plot of Shakespeare’s plays are.
There’s a weak sort of costume disguise scene in Act 5 scn 2, which is way too late for anything interesting to develop. And the female group uncovers there disguise immediately so there’s no confusion or miscommunication or mistakes.
How can you have a comedy without mistakes?
You have one misplaced letter but it doesn’t have any real consequences.
Costard makes a decent idiot, but he only gets one scene.
There’s no mess and I think that’s the problem. The good Shakespeare comedies are messy and confusing and then everything gets cleared up at the end.
And then the ending is strange, because it’s a deferral. It’s not a sad ending and it’s not a happy ending, but a set up for a sequel.
I think it can only be considered a comedy because of the banter.
There’s lots of meaningless puns and bantering and faux misinterpretation between the male group and female group.
Honestly, I can’t remember one exchange.
Boyet.
But to speak that in words which his eye hath disclos’d.
I only have made a mouth of his eye,
By adding a tongue which I know will not lie.
…..
Arm. Call’st thou my love “hobby-horse”?
Moth. No, master, the hobby-horse is but a colt, [aside] and your love perhaps a hackney.—But have you forgot your love?
Arm. Almost I had.
Moth. Negligent student, learn her by heart.
Arm. By heart and in heart, boy.
Moth. And out of heart, master; all those three I will prove.
Arm. What wilt thou prove?
…
etc.etc.
I can do that too.
and two can I do but one is true.
But can two be true with one false trooth?
Speaketh one false trooth makes one false mouth.
false mouths make false tooths and two truths makes one loose in trooth.
etc.
I mean, in the beginning, there was something about a trade with the French king or a debt he needed to pay. Was that resolved at some point? I don’t even know.
——————Edit——————
It’s interesting to me that we still do the same kind of comedy nowadays.
I just watched Groucho Marx on the Dick Cavett show in 1969 and he had a joke that went like this:
“I was in the elevator at the hotel the other day with a priest, and this priest said to me, ‘Aren’t you Groucho Marx?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’
He says, ‘Gee, my mother’s crazy about you.’
And I said, ‘Really? I didn’t know you fathers had mothers.’
Vaudeville and Shakespeare seem to have a lot in common.