Love's Labour's Lost (Shakespeare Project Lecture) (Patreon)

Our journey through the works of William Shakespeare continues with the great feast of language that is Love's Labour's Lost.

We’re discussing lyricism, the sonnets, the death of Hamnet, inventing words, pushing language to breaking point, biographical readings, and much more.

Timestamps:

• 0:00 Shakespeare journeys to London
• 4:00 my response to unfair critics
• 5:30 the death of Hamnet Shakespeare
• 7:30 seeing the writer’s grief in the works
• 9:00 what if Hamnet had not died?
• 10:30 where is Love’s Labour’s Won?
• 11:30 the miracle of the First Folio
• 12:00 how grief affects artistic process
• 13:00 comedies in the wake of real tragedy
• 15:00 biographical readings of Shakespeare
• 16:00 Love’s Labour’s Lost as linguistic feast
• 17:00 Shakespeare makes fire-new words
• 18:30 on desiring a woman’s name
• 20:00 Navarre infected with the affected
• 22:00 ‘all his senses were locked in his eye’
• 24:30 appreciating the unity in the lyrical plays
• 26:00 Shakespeare makes a name for himself
• 27:00 the words that Shakespeare gifted us
• 30:00 how to produce Love’s Labour’s Lost
• 32:30 Kenneth Branagh’s film adaptation
• 34:00 on the play’s unconventional ending
• 36:00 characters as lovers of language
• 38:00 pushing language to breaking point
• 39:00 multiple levels of appreciation
• 40:00 ‘did not I dance with you…?’
• 41:00 appreciating Shakespeare’s sonnets
• 44:00 Harold Bloom on Love’s Labour’s Lost
• 47:00 noting our personal favourite works
• 49:00 on pedantry vs love of language
• 53:00 appreciating my personal one passage
• 56:00 saying the same thing with different words
• 59:00 what did you make of this play?

Recommended Resources:

• Film Appreciation: Kenneth Branagh did a delightful job with his colourful 1999 film adaptation, taking us back to the good old days of Hollywood musicals.
• Audio Recommendation: For an audio adaptation that captures the linguistic power of this play, I recommend this wonderful Arkangel production.
• Arden Edition: The Arden edition of this play once again proves to be a valuable resource. The annotations and introduction in this one are particularly superb.
• Quoting Shakespeare: If you enjoyed Bernard Levin's exploration of the words and phrases we have thanks to the bard, the Globe Theatre has the whole thing beautifully printed on a poster here.
• Don't Mind Your Language: In keeping with this play's celebration of language, you might finding Stephen Fry's article here to be an enjoyable complementary read. 
• Mother Tongue: If you would like to relish some further wordplay, I recommend Bill Bryson's book on the story of the English language. He also has a fabulous and digestible work on Shakespeare here.
• How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare: One of my favourite recent discoveries is this Falstaff Award winning book by playwright Ken Ludwig, which runs through some memorisation techniques that make Shakespeare a joy for children and adults alike.

Questions for You:

1) What do you make of how Shakespeare plays with language?

2) Can you see a relationship between the four lyrical plays?

3) What line, passage, or idea most resonated with you? And what is your personal grading for Love's Labour's Lost?

Happy reading, Bardolators!