Lost labor of love

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Love's Labor's Lost in the 1623 folio edition

Lost Love's Labor (English Love's Labor's lost ) is a comedy by William Shakespeare . The work is about King Ferdinand of Navarre and his three companions who want to found an "academy on a small scale" and therefore swear to fast for three years, to renounce the company of women and to devote themselves to the study of philosophy. However, the plan is thwarted by the arrival of the daughter of the King of France and her three companions. The play ends - unusually for a comedy - with the death of the princess' father and the postponement of all weddings by one year. It is believed that Shakespeare wrote the work around 1594/95. Even if there are no obvious sources for the plot, the four main characters are based on historical figures. The work was first published as Quarto 1598, but the title page suggests that it is a revision of an earlier version. A performance at court before Queen Elizabeth I is attested for the year 1597. At the time of its creation, the work was popular for a short time, but soon disappeared completely from the repertoire. It was not performed again until the 19th century and has been staged more frequently in the recent past. Kenneth Branagh's film version Lost Labor Labor is a little-known adaptation.

action

Act I.

[Scene 1] King Ferdinand of Navarre decides on a new order for his court. Together with his Lords Berowne, Dumain and Longaville, he signs a contract that obliges them to abstain from studying for three years, to refrain from sleep, the company of women and overeating. Berowne initially questions the strict rules for the “small academy”, but joins the friends. The new order also applies to the king's subordinates. The courtier, Don Armado, reported that the farmer Costard was sentenced to one week in prison by the king for illegally seeking the company of the maid Jaquenette.

[Scene 2] Don Armado confesses his love for Jaquenetta to his squire Moth in a lengthy argument and makes her a clumsy proposal of love.

Act II

[Scene 1] The Princess of France arrives at the court of Navarre accompanied by her ladies-in-waiting, Maria, Rosaline and Katharine, as well as Lord Boyet. On behalf of her sick father, she negotiates outstanding loan payments. During the negotiations, Ferdinand's “Fellow Students” question Lord Boyet about the companions of the princess who were traveling with them. Berowne is interested in Rosaline, Dumain in Katherine and Longaville in Maria.

Act III

[Scene 1] Don Armado has written a love letter to Jaquenette and hands it to the captured Costard, who is released as reward for the delivery. Just as Costard is leaving the dungeon, he is stopped by Berowne and persuaded to hand over a love letter for Rosaline for a fee. After the scene, Berowne speaks his monologue “And I, forsooth, in love!”.

Act IV

[Scene 1] The princess goes on a deer hunt with her entourage. On this occasion, Costard distributed the love letters to the wrong addressees. He presented Don Armado's letter to Jaquenetta to the princess. Following the wrong delivery, Costard, Boyet, Maria and Rosaline have a rough battle of words.

[Scene 2] At the beginning of the second scene, Nathaniel, Holofernes and Dull comment on the deer hunt. Costard wrongly delivers the second letter as well. He gives Jaquenette Berowne's letter intended for Rosaline. Jaquenette brings the letter sent to her by Costard to be read to the schoolmaster Holofernes and pastor Nathaniel. They notice the mistake and Holofernes orders Jaquenette to put the letter in the hands of the king, as it is a testimony that Lord Berowne has broken his oath.

[Scene 3] In the so-called sonnet reading scene, King Ferdinand and his colleagues discover one after the other that each of them has broken their oath. First Berowne overhears the king reading his love poem to the princess, then both overhear (without the king knowing about Berowne) Lord Longaville reading his sonnet. Finally, these three watch as Dumaine reads his poem. First Longaville confronts Dumaine, then the King confronts these two, and finally Berowne appears and accuses the King and the Lords. At this point Costard and Jaquenette appear with Berowne's letter. When the king orders this to be read, all four are exposed. Berowne gives a speech (“From women's eyes these doctrine I derive…”) and convinces his friends to openly advertise the princess and the ladies.

Act V

Enter Holofernes, Nathaniel, and Sergeant Dull, followed by Armado, Moth, and Costard. Together they plan the performance of the piece: "The Nine Worthies".

[Scene 2] The princess and her companions sit together and talk lively about the gifts they have received from their admirers. They plan to swap masks and pledges of love at the upcoming meeting in order to mislead the lords and thus mock them. The masked women meet the lords disguised as Muscovites, who are courting the wrong lady because they are not guided by the person, but by the pledges of love. After the masks appear, the women consult with Boyet. Then everyone meets without disguise and the king and his friends have to admit that they were fooled by the women. At the appearance of the “Nine Worthies”, the men mock the actors who are trying in vain for the audience's favor. Enter Mercade, the royal messenger, interrupts the festivities and brings the news of the death of the French king. The party is very concerned, (“The scene begins to cloud.”) The king greets the princess with her new title (“How fares your Majesty?”) And she decides to leave immediately. Before leaving, the women make their lovers promise to wait a year and a day in mourning and then again, this time seriously, to woo their loved ones. At the end, the song of winter and summer is offered and the piece closes with the separation of the couples: "You that way, we this way."

Templates and cultural references

Love's Labor's Lost is one of the few Shakespeare plays for which no direct literary models or sources can be proven or are known. This comedy also occupies a special position in Shakespeare's stage works because of its extraordinarily large number of allusions to current events and trends. Although not all references can be clarified beyond doubt from today's perspective, it is very likely that Shakespeare referred to people and events from contemporary history when constructing the simple plot . The Kingdom of Navarre , located in the Pyrenees on the border between France and Spain, was under the rule of Henri de Navarre, who later became King Henri IV of France . The originally Protestant Henri de Navarre also married the French princess Margaret of Valois, who was raised in 1572 . The royal court of Navarre received delegations from Paris just as frequently as guests; the Dukes of Biron, Longueville (i.e., Longaville) and Mayenne (i.e., Dumain) appearing in the comedy existed as real historical figures, but only share the name with the characters in Love's Labor's Lost .

In the design of the secondary characters, references to various types belonging to the standard repertoire of Italian impromptu comedy can be seen , in particular with the show-off Don Armado and the pedant Holofernes.

Henri de Navarre had broken his word not only by returning to the Catholic faith as a traitor to the Protestant cause, but had also emerged, like other Italian and French princes, as the founder of an academy of arts and philosophy. In Pierre de La Primaudayes L'Académie française , which was translated into English in 1586, there is information about such aristocratically learned institutions. In Shakespeare's comedy, similarly broad horizons of court culture and Platonic philosophy are thematized and explored with intellectual wit and poetic gusto down to their abstruse finesse or hermetic abysses.

Whether the irony of these efforts in Shakespeare's play was also directed against a "school of night" (IV, iii, 251 in the traditional reading) around Sir Walter Raleigh and George Chapman , Shakespeare's poet rivals, can only be answered speculatively. Nor can it be clearly clarified whether the secondary characters Mote and Holofernes were also intended to allude to Thomas Nashe and his opponent Gabriel Harvey . Such references were possibly obvious to the aristocratic audience of the premiere or the court society at the performance before Elizabeth I at Christmas 1596 or 1597. For today's recipients, however, beyond the current occasion, the fundamental openly satirical criticism of vain pedantry, conceitful affectation and exaggerated idealistic transfigurations as well as the playful levity with which it is presented can be opened up.

Linguistic, stylistic and dramaturgical design

According to Manfred Pfister, Love's Labor's Lost is Shakespeare's “most literary” and at the same time “most musical” comedy; Linguistic highlights as well as linguistic mistakes of the characters in the comedy serve to entertain the audience. In none of his other pieces does language have an equally overriding meaning for the characterization of the people and groups of figures in the stage company as in this play. Shakespeare's tendency to try out extremes is evident, as can also be seen in other stage works by the young playwright. The stage language not only serves to characterize the dramatic characters, but is also used for mutual commentary between the characters with regard to a thematic polyphony and thus made an essential part of the comic event.

The range of linguistic presentations is colorful and wide. The dialogue is designed partly in prose , partly in blank verse as well as in rhyming five-headers and shows both rhetorical solo passages and quick verbal exchanges in various speech duels. The varied ongoing dialogue also includes embedding of linguistic productions as shorter or longer inserts, such as letters that are read out loud and commented on, or songs from a simple children's song to the impressive spring and winter song at the end of the piece. In addition, there are mainly poems, again from undemanding rhyming to extremely complex lyrics . Longer insertions, especially the appearance of the “Nine Worthies” (or “Nine Heroes”), are just as naturally presented as a kind of “ game within the game ”.

The plan and the vow of King Ferdinand and his aristocratic court society to devote themselves exclusively to philosophical studies in their Platonic Academy and henceforth to strive for a completely ascetic life (Ii), is already at the beginning as an unnatural pose or by the artificially stilted, rhetorically high-pitched diction Unmasked attitude that begins to fall apart with the arrival of the princess and her companions. As love free the male members engage the noblemen to a rapturous Petrarchan language that is different from love sonnets and stanzas finally through to their exaggeration as persiflage expands.

The noble female figures, on the other hand, with the cultivation of their naturalness in connection with their unaffected wit, represent a balance between nature and spirit, which their admirers lack in their courtship. Although the ladies can also be quick-witted or funny, they talk less or more sensibly and are less involved in language games. In this way, they show a far less exaggerated attitude towards reality in contrast to their suitors in love, who try to woo their loved ones with opulent testimonies of their linguistic abilities and expressions , and thus their wits . The female figures here resemble Shakespeare's later comedy heroines, for example in As You like it and Twelfth Night . In addition, the behavior and linguistic confusion of the aristocratic courtiers are more or less consistently caricatured by the secondary characters that Shakespeare borrowed from the types of Commedia dell'arte .

In particular, the focus on the context of linguistic extravagances and perversions, in addition to the euphuistic rhetoric and the exuberant lyricalisms even of the aristocratic female figures, is above all expanded in various passages and at the same time disavowed by the bombastic and grotesque rhetoric of the boastful Armado in his Advertisement for the peasant girl Jaquenette or the absurd linguistic pedantry and the screwed-up Latinisms of the village schoolmaster Holofernes or the village pastor Nathaniel as well as the linguistic inadequacies of Costard's utterances, which are described in an almost maudliny manner, and also through the complete language failure of the simple-minded village bully Dull.

The contrast between the various levels of style and language also emphasizes the differences in social rank between the various groups in the stage company and the position of the individual characters within their respective social group. Only the members of the upper classes in the ensemble of characters have a complete command of the language and its finesse or diverse varieties, while the other members of the stage company with their linguistic deficits are occasionally or sometimes regularly exposed to ridicule. Within the groups, there is also a classification according to the respective language ability, for example with regard to the funniest punch lines or the most complicated word games. Thus, among the male figures, it is not so much the king himself who stands out as the main speaker, but in particular Berowne as the main speaker and thus the main character.

The mocker Biron plays a special role in this thematic focus on the linguistic, who already stands out from the rest of the stage figures at the beginning with his more insightful or more conscious and critical attitude as well as his greater linguistic flexibility. He is the one who justifies the breaking of the academic vow in a linguistically fluent address with metaphorical comparisons and analogies by boldly declaring his love for the actual academy and the eyes of the beloved as the actual philosophical textbook (IV, iii). Finally, he confesses his conversion to a natural, no longer affected relationship between language and reality in a solemn rejection of artificial phrases and silky, hollow rhetoric (V, ii). However, the elaborate linguistic form of his justification undermines this turning away from the previous vow as such through his own way of speaking and thus part of the ironic self-immunization of the discourses of the stage characters, which characterizes this Shakespeare comedy in a very specific way.

The artificial stimulus of the linguistic design corresponds to its correspondence in the choreographically balanced symmetry of the groups of people and the artificial stylization of the dialogue technique. These stylistic devices are reminiscent of the comedies of John Lyly , from whose exaggerated aesthetic art of language and dramaturgy Shakespeare clearly distances himself here parodistically .

In the structuring of the groupings of people and the rather loose sequence of the group conversations with their diverse verse and stanzan forms, a structural three number is striking, for example in the threefold power of eavesdropping scene (IV, iii), in which the triumph of natural instincts over affected presumptions of the mind is theatrically evident is shown. Shakespeare exaggerates a convention of Elizabethan comedy in a playful parodic form .

Likewise, the last scene takes a surprising, apparently unconventional turn: following the message of the death of the French king, after being involved in an intersex comedy of confusion, the lovers in the masked procession of the courtiers in the fifth act primarily prepare the one presented by the citizens of Navarre, comically inadequate performance of the “Nine Heroes”, which already foreshadows the craftsman's game in Midsummer Night's Dream , with its turn towards an uncomedy-like reality at a conclusion that was unique for comedies at the time: there is no usual happy ending; The advertising of Ferdinand and his courtiers only has a chance of success when, after a year has passed, they have proven their return to reality and unaffected behavior. The postponement of the happy outcome and also the songs of spring and winter, which again contrast the unnatural vanity with the rhythm of nature in the seasonal cycle, finally once again represent the seriousness of the subject of the piece with regard to the relationship between nature and spirit or refined naturalness and affected language that Shakespeare presents in this comedy in a playful and easy way.

Text and dating

Title page of the first quarto from 1598.

The first early printing a single print is obtained as Quarto -Issue from 1598 printed by W [illiam] W [hite] Cuthbert Burby. The title page describes this four-high version as ' A | PLEASANT | Conceited Comedie | CALLED, | Loues laboratories lost. | As it was preSented before her Highness | this last Christmas. | Newly corrected and augmented | By W. ShakeSpere. ' . However, there is no previous entry of the printing rights and printing registration in the Stationers' Register . Since Burby published the so-called “good quarto” by Romeo and Juliet in the following year as the second quarto edition (Q 2 ) with the word-for-word reference to an improved and expanded reprint, numerous Shakespeare researchers suspected that this was before the traditional first edition of Love's Labor's Lost, similar to the Q 2 print by Romeo and Juliet, a so-called "bad" edition that was lost previously existed as the first print version. This possibility has not been ruled out in the recent discussion; However, it is also conceivable that the information on the title page is just an exaggeration by Burby. For example, the editors of the Oxford edition consider it more likely, based on various indications in the printed text, that the four-high edition from 1598 is a mere reprint of a no longer preserved first printed edition from the same year, which was a rough version of Shakespeare's handwritten manuscript (so-called " foul paper ”).

In addition to the praising reference to a performance for Queen Elisabeth , the title page of the traditional four-high print from 1598 contains, for the first time in a play, a designation of Shakespeare as the author. In contrast, the text of the folio edition from 1623 is only a slightly edited version of the four-high print and, like the second four-high print from 1631, does not have its own text authority as a reprint. Only the quarto edition from 1598 is decisive for the text transmission and today's editions.

The text as such, however, presents the modern editors with sometimes greater challenges due to the confrontation with an unusually large number of errors and problem areas: In this first edition, for example, there are an abundance of typographical errors of all kinds, sentences without meaning and obviously incorrect assignments of text passages the speakers. Particularly noticeable are several passages in which entire passages in two versions, a shorter, apparently earlier, and an extended, probably later version, appear next to each other in the text.

Many of these errors are almost certainly due to a lack of care and experience in the printer's workshop; however, there are also discrepancies that are probably related to the nature of the handwritten artwork. Against the background of the various hypotheses for explaining these discrepancies, the most likely assumption at the current state of the discussion is that the typesetter used the author's manuscripts as printing templates that were difficult to read and in which changes or deletions were not always clearly marked or recognizable.

In Shakespeare research, the period between 1594 and 1595 is usually used as the year of origin. The latest possible time of completion of the work ( terminus ante quem ) is historically clearly documented in addition to the four-high print from 1598 by the explicit mention of the piece in the overview of works Paladis Tamia by Francis Meres published in the same year . The reference on the title page of the four-high print to a previous court performance “this last Christmas” refers either to Christmas 1597/98 or as early as 1596/97; accordingly, the work must have been written beforehand. A number of other bibliographic references and, above all, the lyrical echoes of the epic poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece , both written around 1592/93, as well as the stylistic and dramaturgical proximity in the virtuoso rhetorical language to stage works such as Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream , both most likely written around 1595/1596, suggest, from the point of view of the majority of Shakespeare researchers and scholars, that Love's Labor's Lost was written to the period between 1594 and 1595.

Reception history

After the publication of Love's Labor's Lost , this comedy was one of the more modern or fashionable pieces of its time, according to Ulrich Suerbaum. According to Suerbaum, it fitted into an epoch in which the learned and educated classes in England at that time were enthusiastic or fascinated by the numerous possibilities of English, which had previously been regarded as a vulgar language compared to Latin as the classical language of art or science showed great interest in trying out the new, witty or humorous design possibilities of the English language.

One of the earliest known admirers of this piece was probably George Chapman , who showed his knowledge and positive appreciation of the work in various places in his first two comedies The Blind Beggar of Alexandria (1596) and An Humorous Day's Mirth (1597).

Insofar as this can be seen from the incompletely documented traditions and is also supported by the printing of another four-high edition in 1631, it can be assumed that this early comedy remained successful for some time after Shakespeare's death, especially with the aristocratic theater audience or upper classes. Up until the age of James I , for example , Love's Labor's Lost was recognized in 1604 because of its " wytt & mirthe ", i.e. H. his wit and serenity, selected as the most suitable drama to be performed before Queen Anne .

As an extraordinarily time-related play, which was seen by Anne Barton, the renowned editor of Riverside Shakespeare , as the most Elizabethan of all Shakespeare's plays, the comedy found little resonance in later epochs, if at all, only with restrictions and mostly major comprehension problems in the reading or theater audience.

While the more cultivated contemporaries of Shakespeare enjoyed the witty ideas as conceits , from the restoration period onwards they were understood as silly jokes by subsequent generations. Typical punch lines were no longer understood without additional explanations or recorded without irritation; Shakespeare's linguistic skill could no longer easily be enjoyed as witty or humorous entertainment. Not least for this reason, the play was neglected for a long time by the theater makers and critics and was almost forgotten for over 200 years.

So the piece did not meet with much approval in the 18th century either. In keeping with the spirit of the times, the writer, poet and critic Charles Gildon, for example, found in 1710 that Love's Labor's Lost was one of the worst Shakespeare plays, and that it might even be the very worst. At the end of this century the actor, playwright and critic Francis Gentleman judged the comedy in his collection of essays The Dramatic Censor, or Critical Companion as one of the weakest artistic Shakespeare's ( "one of Shakespeare's weakest compositions" ).

The scholar, writer and critic Samuel Johnson , who was extremely influential at the time, criticized, despite his generally positive view of the work in certain respects, with reference to Alexander Pope's assessment, the language in Love's Labor's Lost , which was not worthy of Shakespeare , which he called " mean, childish and vulgar ”(German roughly:“ poor, childish and vulgar ”) and whose puns he did not appreciate much. In doing so, however, he also pointedly expressed the fundamental contemporary concerns about the play and marked the preliminary climax of a critical view of comedy that had increasingly expanded since John Dryden's Essay on Poesy (1668), in which he spoke of Shakespeare's " comic wit degenerating in clenches ”spoke (German roughly:“ comical joke that degenerates in its compressions or brackets ”).

Until well into the 20th century, this negative assessment was hardly contradicted in literary studies or literary criticism in general, although English romantics such as William Hazlitt and Samuel Taylor Coleridge and in particular also the German translator and critic August Wilhelm Schlegel or Shakespeare scholars such as Hermann Ulrici and Historians like Georg Gottfried Gervinus have repeatedly praised the play's particular strengths.

This shadowy existence, which Love's Labor's Lost led within the Shakespearean canon for almost 200 years, only changed in the English theater world since the Victorian era . The turning point in the reception history of the work was introduced in 1878 by the Victorian essayist and poet Walter Pater's treatise on Shakespeare's Comedy; In the following years the special charm of the poetic language and the dramatic structure of Love's Labor's Lost was rediscovered by the well-known playwright, critic and director Harley Granville-Barker . The paradigm shift initiated by Victorian literary criticism in the assessment of this early Shakespeare comedy is reflected equally in the extremely positive view of the work by Algernon Charles Swinburne . After sporadic re-performances in partially adapted form, the comedy was successfully re-performed in 1932 and finally in 1936 in the Old Vic, directed by the young Tyrone Guthrie .

In the German-speaking area, Goethe and his circle of friends in Strasbourg with Johann Gottfried Herder , Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling and Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz had already rediscovered the advantages of this Shakespeare play. a. found its expression in Lenz's translation of Love's Labor's Lost from 1774. Also in the resulting in the 1940's novel Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann the significance of is Lost Love's in the context of the discussion of the dialectical polarity between "education" and "barbarism" recognized again in the 24th chapter.

The playability of the work, which was previously viewed as problematic, was increased in the 20th century by a series of new productions by recognized directors such as Tyrone Guthrie (1936), Peter Brook (1946), Peter Hall (1953 and 1956), John Barton (1965) or Terry Hands demonstrated sustainably on stage. In contemporary literary studies and literary criticism, too, which in recent times has increasingly concentrated on the analysis of linguistic or linguistic phenomena, this early Shakespeare comedy has since then again enjoyed a clear appreciation against the background of a now more precise exploration of the Elizabethan language and the linguistic skill associated with it Experienced.

Translations

Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz published the first translation into German under the Latin title Amor vincit omnia (Leipzig 1774). Four years later, the drama appeared as Der Liebe Müh ist free in the 4th volume of the first complete German Shakespeare translation by Johann Joachim Eschenburg (Strasbourg / Mannheim 1778). Wieland did not translate the comedy. The Schlegel - Tieck edition contains the work in a translation by Wolf Heinrich Graf von Baudissin (Berlin 1839) under the title Dear Suffering and Lust . More recent translations are by Hans Rothe ( Love suffers with Lust, Munich 1963), Erich Fried ( Verlorene Liebesmühe, Berlin 1989), Frank-Patrick Steckel ( Verlorene Liebesmüh, Cologne 2000) and Frank Günther ( Verlorene Liebesmüh, Cadolzburg 2000). In 1999, Ursula Sautter published an annotated study edition with her own prose translation.

Adaptations

Nicolas Nabokov wrote an opera of the same name based on a libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman , which was premiered in 1973 in Brussels by the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin . Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus also features a composition by his protagonist , Adrian Leverkühn, entitled Love's labor's lost, which is clearly reminiscent of Shakespeare. The Middle Latin word honorificabilitudinitatibus , which the joker Costard puts into his mouth with satirical intent in Love's Labor's Lost , is the longest word in Shakespeare's oeuvre and has long been considered the longest word in the English language.

Film adaptations

Text output

English
  • Charlton Hinman, Peter WM Blayney (Ed.): The Norton Facsimile. The First Folio of Shakespeare. Based on the Folios in the Folger Library Collection. 2nd Edition. W. W. Norton, New York 1996, ISBN 0-393-03985-4 .
  • John Jowett, William Montgomery, Gary Taylor, Stanley Wells (Eds.): The Oxford Shakespeare. The Complete Works. 2nd Edition. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2005, ISBN 0-19-926718-9 .
  • Henry R. Woudhuysen (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love Labor Lost. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Methuen, London 1988, ISBN 1-904271-10-3 .
  • William C. Caroll (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. The New Cambridge Shakespeare. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2009, ISBN 978-0-521-29431-7 .
  • George Richard Hibbard (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. The Oxford Shakespeare. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1990, ISBN 0-19-953681-3 .
English German
  • Frank Günther (ed.): William Shakespeare: Lost love effort. Bilingual edition. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-423-12751-1 .
  • Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999, ISBN 3-86057-557-0 .

literature

Lexicons
Overview representations
Introductions
Investigations on individual topics
  • Alexander Leggatt (Ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Shakespearean Comedy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002, ISBN 0-521-77942-1 .
  • Russell Jackson (Ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-68501-6 .
  • Stanley Wells, Gary Taylor (Eds.): William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1987. (rev. New edition 1997, ISBN 0-393-31667-X )
Collections of articles
  • Felicia Hardison Londre (Ed.): Love's Labor's Lost. Critical essays. Routledge, 1997, ISBN 0-8153-3888-0 .

Web links

Wikisource: Love's Labor's Lost  - Sources and full texts (English)
Commons : Love's Labor's Lost  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. I, 1, 1-23. (Comment I.1) Pages 375–381.
  2. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. I, 1, 24-32. (Comment I.1) page 376.
  3. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. I, 1, 47f. (Comment I.1) page 376.
  4. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. I, 1, 178. (Comment I.1) page 379.
  5. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. I, 2, 55. (Comment I.2) page 383.
  6. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. I, 2, 123-131. (Comment I.2) page 385.
  7. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. II, 1, 30-32. (Comment II.1) page 386.
  8. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. II, 1, 128. (Comment II.1) page 389.
  9. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. II, 1, 192. (Comment II.1) page 390.
  10. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. III, 1, 121. (Comment III.1) page 393.
  11. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. III, 1, 135-162. (Comment III.1) page 394.
  12. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. III, 1, 162-194. (Comment III.1) page 394f.
  13. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. IV, 1, 1-40.
  14. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. IV, 1, 41-60.
  15. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. IV, 1, 60-106.
  16. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. IV, 1, 107-149. (Comment IV.1) Pages 395-398.
  17. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. IV, 2, 1-77.
  18. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. IV, 2, 78-89.
  19. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. IV, 2, 126-137. (Comment IV.2) Pages 398-402.
  20. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. IV, 3, 1-359. (Comment IV.3) Pages 402-411.
  21. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. V, 1, 105-141. (Comment V.1) Pages 411-414.
  22. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. V, 2, 1–156.
  23. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. V, 2, 156-266.
  24. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. V, 2, 267-310.
  25. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. V, 2, 310-485.
  26. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. V, 2, 543-704.
  27. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. V, 2, 706-711.
  28. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. V, 2, 712-715.
  29. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. V, 2, 716f.
  30. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. V, 2, 718-875.
  31. Ursula Sautter (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. Lost labor of love. English-German study edition. Stauffenberg Verlag, Tübingen 1999. V, 2, 876-912.
  32. See Ulrich Suerbaum : The Shakespeare Guide. Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-15-017663-8 . (3rd, rev. Edition 2015, ISBN 978-3-15-020395-8 ), p. 105. See also Ina Schabert (Ed.): Shakespeare Handbuch. 5th, supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-520-38605-2 , p. 396.
  33. Ina Schabert (Ed.): Shakespeare Handbook. 5th, supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-520-38605-2 , p. 396 f.
  34. Manfred Pfister: Love's Labor's Lost (Verlorene Liebesmüh '). In: Ina Schabert (Ed.): Shakespeare Handbook. 5th, supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-520-38605-2 , pp. 397 and 399. Cf. also Ulrich Suerbaum: Der Shakespeare-Führer. Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-15-017663-8 . (3rd, revised edition 2015, ISBN 978-3-15-020395-8 ), p. 106.
  35. See Ina Schabert (Ed.): Shakespeare Handbook. 5th, supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-520-38605-2 , p. 397. See also Ulrich Suerbaum: Der Shakespeare-Führer. Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-15-017663-8 . (3rd, rev. Edition 2015, ISBN 978-3-15-020395-8 ), p. 106 f.
  36. See Ina Schabert (Ed.): Shakespeare Handbook. 5th, supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-520-38605-2 , p. 397 f. Cf. also Ulrich Suerbaum: The Shakespeare Guide. Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-15-017663-8 . (3rd, rev. Edition 2015, ISBN 978-3-15-020395-8 ), p. 106 f.
  37. ^ Stanley Wells , Gary Taylor (Eds.): William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1987, Stanley Wells , Gary Taylor (Eds.): William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1987, rev. New edition 1997, ISBN 0-393-31667-X , pp. 270 f., And Michael Dobson , Stanley Wells (ed.): The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. 2nd Edition. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-870873-5 , p. 285. See also Ina Schabert (Ed.): Shakespeare Handbuch. 5th, supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-520-38605-2 , p. 395 f. See also Henry R. Woudhuysen (ed.): William Shakespeare: Love Labor Lost. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Methuen, London 1988, ISBN 1-904271-10-3 , Introduction p. 76f. and Appendix 1, 317f.
  38. See Ulrich Suerbaum : The Shakespeare Guide. Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-15-017663-8 . (3rd, revised edition 2015, ISBN 978-3-15-020395-8 ), p. 104.
  39. See Ina Schabert (Ed.): Shakespeare Handbook. 5th, supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-520-38605-2 , p. 395. See also Ulrich Suerbaum: Der Shakespeare-Führer. Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-15-017663-8 . (3rd, revised edition 2015, ISBN 978-3-15-020395-8 ), p. 105.
  40. See Ulrich Suerbaum: The Shakespeare Guide. Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-15-017663-8 . (3rd, rev. Edition 2015, ISBN 978-3-15-020395-8 ), p. 105 f.
  41. Michael Dobson , Stanley Wells (Ed.): The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. Oxford University Press, 2nd edition Oxford 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-870873-5 , p. 285, and Ulrich Suerbaum: Der Shakespeare-Führer. Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-15-017663-8 . (3rd, rev. Edition 2015, ISBN 978-3-15-020395-8 ), p. 104. See also Henry R. Woudhuysen (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love Labours Lost. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Methuen, London 1988, ISBN 1-904271-10-3 , Introduction p. 78ff and Appendix 1, 298 ff.
  42. See Ulrich Suerbaum: The Shakespeare Guide. Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-15-017663-8 . (3rd, rev. Edition 2015, ISBN 978-3-15-020395-8 ), p. 108. See also Henry R. Woudhuysen's reference to contemporary fashion and the popularity of this new type of new satirical or humorous linguistic forms of play that were consistent with Shakespeare's comedy and contributed to his reputation and popularity. In: Henry R. Woudhuysen (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love Labor Lost. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Methuen, London 1988, ISBN 1-904271-10-3 , Introduction p. 76.
  43. See for more details Henry R. Woudhuysen (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love Labor Lost. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Methuen, London 1988, ISBN 1-904271-10-3 , Introduction p. 75.
  44. See Ulrich Suerbaum: The Shakespeare Guide. Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-15-017663-8 . (3rd, rev. Edition 2015, ISBN 978-3-15-020395-8 ), p. 108.Suerbaum also refers in this context to John Munro (ed.): The Shakespeare Allusion Book: A Collection of Allusions to Shakespeare from 1591 to 1700. Reprint. Volume 1, Duffield & Company, 1909, p. 109. Cf. also the remarks by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen, who point out that this comedy in the Elizabethan period was particularly popular among the educated classes ( “a favorite for the sophicated audience " ) was popular, while the audience from the lower or uneducated classes ( " the base vulgar " ) did not know how to absorb the puns and elaborate linguistic finesse of the work and found the work to be rather bland or lackluster ( " dull " ). See Jonathan Bate, Eric Rasmussen (Eds.): Love's Labor's Lost. In: William Shakespeare: Complete Works. The RSC Shakespeare. MacMillan, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-230-20095-1 , p. 305. Cf. also Ina Schabert (Ed.): Shakespeare Handbuch. 5th, supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-520-38605-2 , p. 398 f.
  45. ^ Anne Barton: Love's Labor's Lost. In: Gwynne Blakemore Evans et al. (Ed.): The Riverside Shakespeare. Houghton Mifflin, Boston 1974, p. 208: "perhaps the most relentlessly Elizabethan of all Shakespeare's plays" . Quoted from: Ulrich Suerbaum: The Shakespeare Guide. Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-15-017663-8 . (3rd, rev. Edition 2015, ISBN 978-3-15-020395-8 ), p. 108. In addition to the further explanations by Suerbaum, cf. also the literal reproduction of the quotation in Alfred Lestie Rowe: Discoveries and Reviews: from Renaissance to restoration. The Macmillan Press, London / Basingstoke 1975, ISBN 1-349-02625-5 , p. 81.
  46. Ulrich Suerbaum: The Shakespeare guide. Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-15-017663-8 . (3rd, rev. 2015 edition, ISBN 978-3-15-020395-8 ), p. 108. For Francis Gentleman's judgment, see Michael Dobson , Stanley Wells (ed.): The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. 2nd edition. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-870873-5 , p. 286. Cf. also the explanations of the history of reception by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen in: Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen (eds.): Love's Labor's Lost. In: William Shakespeare: Complete Works. The RSC Shakespeare. MacMillan, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-230-20095-1 , pp. 305 f. See also Ina Schabert (Ed.): Shakespeare Handbook. 5th, supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-520-38605-2 , p. 398 f. and detailed George Richard Hibbard (ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. The Oxford Shakespeare. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1990, ISBN 0-19-953681-3 , Introduction p. 3.
  47. See George Richard Hibbard (ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. The Oxford Shakespeare. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1990, ISBN 0-19-953681-3 , Introduction p. 3f. On the reception of Love's Labor's Lost in the English criticism of the 18th century, cf. Eva Maria Inbar: Shakespeare in Deutschland: Der Fall Lenz. Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen 1982, ISBN 3-484-18067-6 , p. 98. Inbar also has u. a. with reference to various sources by John Dryden, Alexander Pope and Lewis Theobald Theobald points out that this early comedy Shakespeare was one of Shakespeare's most unpopular works in the English reception in the 18th century. See also Michael Dobson and Stanley Wells (Eds.): The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. 2nd edition. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-870873-5 , p. 286. (Ed.): The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. 2nd edition. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-870873-5 , p. 286.
  48. See Ulrich Suerbaum: The Shakespeare Guide. Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-15-017663-8 . (3rd, rev. Edition 2015, ISBN 978-3-15-020395-8 ), p. 108 f. See also Michael Dobson and Stanley Wells (eds.): The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. 2nd edition. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-870873-5 , p. 286.
  49. See details George Richard Hibbard (Ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. The Oxford Shakespeare. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1990, ISBN 0-19-953681-3 , Introduction p. 5f. For Swinburne's verdict and Guthrie's successful revivals, see Michael Dobson and Stanley Wells, eds.: The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. 2nd edition. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-870873-5 , pp. 286 f. See also Ulrich Suerbaum: The Shakespeare Guide. Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-15-017663-8 . (3rd rev. Edition 2015, ISBN 978-3-15-020395-8 ), p. 108, and Ina Schabert (ed.): Shakespeare Handbuch. 5th, supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-520-38605-2 , p. 398 f.
  50. Ina Schabert (Ed.): Shakespeare Handbook. 5th, supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-520-38605-2 , p. 398 f. On the German translation by Lenz under the influence of his Strasbourg circle of friends, see Eva Maria Inbar: Shakespeare in Germany: The Lenz case. Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen 1982, ISBN 3-484-18067-6 , pp. 94-101.
  51. See Ulrich Suerbaum: The Shakespeare Guide. Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-15-017663-8 . (3rd, rev. Edition 2015, ISBN 978-3-15-020395-8 ), p. 108 f. See also Ina Schabert (Ed.): Shakespeare Handbook. 5th, supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-520-38605-2 , p. 398 f. See also George Richard Hibbard (ed.): William Shakespeare: Love's Labor's Lost. The Oxford Shakespeare. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1990, ISBN 0-19-953681-3 , Introduction p. 6ff.