As noted last week, the last scene, Act Five, Scene Two, of Love's Labor Lost is not only the longest in the play at 914 lines, but the longest in the Canon as well, longer than most comedic Act Three and Fours COMBINED.

Ironically, however, not a whole lot happens. The quick synopsis is this: The men decide to "woo" the women in the guise of being Muscovites, and they plan to woo the women based upon the "favors" or gifts the women have received from them. Boyet discovers this and warns the women, who decide to mock the Muscovites and switch favors (while wearing masks) so that the wooers woo the wrong women. The Muscovites, mocked, leave, and the men return as themselves to woo and confess. The women still cruelly mock them, even through the wild pageant presented by Armado and company. A messenger from France arrives to tell the Princess her father has died. The king asks them to stay, but they refuse. When the King asks her to marry him, she refuses, saying if he will be a hermit for a year and then come to her, she'll think about it. And the play ends. And that takes nearly a thousand lines, or close to forty percent of the play's length.

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This week's podcast is the launch of our month-long discussion of Love's Labor's Lost, including some introductory remarks, a plot synopsis of most of the play, and we'll do our usual recap of this week's blog entries.  

Download | Duration: 00:23:31

Errata:
18:51 -- Text should be "over Katherine" instead of "over Maria"



Podcast Credits

This podcast was recorded using a Blue Snowball microphone onto a Dell XPS 400 computer, using Adobe Soundbooth recording and editing software.

The bumper music (Loop 90) and the segue music (Morning Show Segue) are courtesy of Royalty Free Music.com, which offers a comprehensive music library of production music for your various royalty free music needs including full albums, tracks and free music clips, loops, and beats available for download.

        

At the beginning of Act Four, Scene Three of Love's Labor's Lost, we find the lovelorn Berowne, paper in hand, ready to write again, but able only to bemoan his fate. He hates love (which makes him "toil... in pitch -- pitch that defiles" [IV.iii.2-3]), but he loves Rosaline. When he spies one of his comrades coming, he stands asides and watches. The King enters, sighing; Berowne, in an aside to us, states his joy: "Shot, by heaven!" (IV.iii.20). He's not the only one feeling Cupid's shaft, as the King proceeds to read his poem... it's a sonnet, but a sixteen-line sonnet. Before Berowne can comment, "one more fool appear(s)" (IV.iii.42), and the King stands back to watch. This time it's Longaville, and like his King, he's full of sighs.

What follows is a comic scene as the King watches and comments upon Longaville's fate and poem; Berowne comments upon not only Longaville, but on the King's commentary as well. As Berowne says, "Like a demigod here sit I in the sky, // And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'ereye" (IV.iii.75-76).

As you expect, Dumaine is the last to enter, as Longaville steps back to watch, and we get our increasingly layered commentary: Longaville on Dumaine; the King on Longaville and Dumaine; Berowne on all three--"O heavens, I have my wish! ... four woodcocks in a dish!" (IV.iii.78).

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Act Three of Love's Labor's Lost begins the next morning.

[or at least, I think.... though I suppose it could be the same day, but then this would need to be a very long day indeed... ]

Armado is pining for love, and his page Moth is trying to cheer him up. Songs. Jokes. Nothing works. There's quite a bit of quick banter, punning, and some double entendre, with Moth's comic observations delivered to us as asides interspersed throughout. Armado decides to release Costard from his captivity, "enfreedoming" (III.i.121) the clown, and have him deliver to Jaquenetta, a love letter the Spaniard has composed. ... << MORE >>

When we left off after the first scene in Love's Labor's Lost, the King and his three attendants (Berowne, Dumaine, and Longaville) had agreed to study and forgo the company of women for three years, and we had learned of Don Armado, the Spanish mangler of English, and had met Costard the clown (shepherd, really, but who's kidding who?). Armado had seen Costard "consort(ing)" with Jaquenetta, and had made a citizen's arrest of both; the Spaniard had sent Costard to the King and had kept Jaquenetta in his custody, just in case.

As Act One, Scene Two begins, we meet Armado and his little page, Moth. We immediately see why the King thinks that Armado will keep the women-less men entertained for the next three years:  his use/misuse/abuse of language is awesome:

I spoke it, tender juvenal, as a congruent epitheton appertaining to thy young days, which we may nominate "tender."

-- I.ii.13-15

Every phrase uttered is a conflagration borne of the purply-prosaic but so very poetical ardor rampaging in his ever pining breast.

[not bad, eh?]

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The opening of Love's Labor's Lost is a quiet beginning, one of exposition (as opposed to a BANG or processional). The King of Navarre, a landlocked region in the north of Spain, bordered by other Spanish states in all directions, save the north-northeast, where Navarre shares a border with France, enters with his three... let's call them attendants, for now: Berowne, Longaville, and Dumaine.

[now according to the character list and the stage direction, the King's name is Ferdinand, but that name is never used in dialog... so we'll just call him "the King" from here on out for the rest of the month... oh, yeah... and I'm going with Love's Labor's Lost instead of Love's Labour's Lost... 'cuz we're here in America, ya hear?  anyway... ]

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As I begin the first read-through Love's Labor's Lost, I'm noticing that we're heading into some interesting territory, linguistically speaking.  Within two dozen lines, we begin to see rhyme, and a lot of it.  Nearly half of the lines of the opening scene rhyme (130 of 294), and not just in the standard AA BB CC ... variety, either.  Before we hit line 50, we're seeing ABAB schemes, and by the end of the scene, those ABAB schemes are split between two characters.  Much more complex than what we've seen up to now.

Also, we're getting quite a bit more prose as well... 124 lines of that opening scene is prose, well over one-third.

[so, when you think about it... the percentage of rhyme here is actually much higher... 130 out of the remaining 170... that's over three-quarters...]

Don't know if these ratios will continue throughout the play. If we look at the plays we've read so far, however, the numbers are striking: the highest percentage of prose is in The Taming of the Shrew (but that was just only 20%), and the highest percentage of rhyme is in The Comedy of Errors (20% of all lines, 23% of poetic lines).

[hmmmm, both comedies, as this one is... are we seeing a trend?]

Needless to say, we're in a whole new linguistic area... I can feel my safe little rhythm of reading the last four histories (you say rhythm, I say rut), being shattered -- ok, if not shattered, then in need of major revisions.

Tomorrow, we'll start with a little plot...

        

It's February 1, and technically, the month ended yesterday and with it, our discussion of Richard the Third.  But like everything else in the oversized legend of the ol' Crookback, the month's not even big enough to contain him.  While we should be moving on to Love's Labor's Lost today, I want to say good-bye to "misshapen Dick" (3HVI, V.v.35).

If January had another week in it, I probably would have hit some other topics, like

• that whole saints question
• that trimeter thing (both of those from the same original entry date)
• sexual imagery in Richard's language (I have a hunch there's more there somewhere)
• Richard as tragic hero

Alas, January has only 31 days, and they're over, pal.

[maybe in July of 212, when The Tempest is over, I'll hit some topics of choice/omission/obsession...]

The bloody dog is dead... let's lose some labors of love

        

This week's podcast is a conclusion of our month-long discussion of Richard the Third, including some non-DVD reviews (including a discussion of the You-Tube'd presentation of the English Shakespeare Company production of 1990, as well as two books by actors who've performed the role, and one book of note for Richard fans), a production concept, and possible casts.  We'll have some final opinions on the play, and we'll do our usual recap of this week's blog entries.  

Download | Duration: 00:16:04

Podcast Credits

This podcast was recorded using a Blue Snowball microphone onto a Dell XPS 400 computer, using Adobe Soundbooth recording and editing software.

The bumper music (Loop 90) and the segue music (Morning Show Segue) are courtesy of Royalty Free Music.com, which offers a comprehensive music library of production music for your various royalty free music needs including full albums, tracks and free music clips, loops, and beats available for download.