The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-10-19


France attended by three noble and
beautiful ladies. The princess is upon
an embassy for her father, the king OF
France, who is old, feeble and ILL.,
The king of Navarro and his three
courtiers are disimayed. They do not
wish to be unkind. nor do'they wish 70
deny themselves the happiness OF meet
ing these noble and beautiful ladles.
And yet they do not wish TO De lor-
sworn of their oath.
Finally, since necessity knows no law,
they agree to be forsworn OF their
oath this much: They will meet the
princess and her train without the
precincts of the court; but the ladies'
are not to be admitted within the pre-
cincts. 5rsvaa -
When the meeting takes place the
king and his three courtiers fall in
love with the princess and her three
ladies. respectively But for shame's
sake they will not confess their love
to one another In the end, however,
through a series of misadventures. they
become acquainted with their common
predicament. and they unite upon
common plan to obtain the favor OF
their loved ones.
The princess and her ladies also ma
out about the ,geltlemen's predicament,
and determine to have some merrlment
over the affair So when the King and
his courtiers, in the disguise of Museo-
vites visit the princess and her ladies',
the princess and her ladies also dis
guise themselves. The result is that
every one of the four gentlemen makes
love to the wrong lady.
When subsequently the gentlemen
visit the ladies in their proper gutse
and again declare their loves the ladies
mercilessly laugh at them for their for
mer blunders.z.aIn the end, however, the
lovers are all, accepted, but only on
condition of each doing a years PEN
ance, as, for example retreatinS
ITO some forlorn and naked herInftag e's-
this not only because of the broken
oaths, but also to show that their love
is lasting.
Note-Read the play before reading
any of the studies which follow. Note
DR.. Cooks directions, as published in
the Record on Monday.
A Neglected Comedy.
Loves Labcrs Lost" isperhaps the
least read of Shakespeare's comedies;
and for this neglect it is easy to assign
a reason. The play, probably Shakes
peares first attempt at independent
dramatic composition, is on the surface
at least, of quite different character
from his other comedies. While these
deal with the lasting attributes of hui
man nature and find their humor in
the perenniaEy ridiculous aspects of
mans character, Loves Labor'S Lost
is a satiric fling at contemporary fol-
lies and provokes laughter by its carl
cature of figures and fashions we'll
known to it's first hearers, but as for
gotten to the average reader of today
as the heroes who lived before Aga
memnon. Just as Patience some
years back swept over England and
America in a peal of merry knocking
laughter. but has already passed away
into the dark backward and abysm of
time. so this play of Shakespeare
which once set the pit of the Blackfri-
srs theatre roaring, and Sweetly COM
!aeaded itself to the fancy of good
Queen BesS and the learning of wise
King James, is now to all intents dead
past hope of resurrection from the
shelves of the library to the boards of
the stage The illusions to the fantas-
tic Monarcilo, to the dancing horse, to
the last fashionable licentious poem,
all ring hollow today, and when
Shakespeare's merry gentlemen belabor
the long forgotten fashion of pedantic
and affected speech, the reader is in
clined to cry with Armada: THE sweet
war man is dead and rotten; sweet
chucks, beat not the bones of the dead"
And yet for the student of Shakes
peare Loves Labor's Lost has q Pc
culiar interest. 1t was the special ia
vorite of the young Goethe and his cir
Gle of Shakespeare woFshipers at Stras-
burg. Schlegel, the great champion of
the romantic school in Germany, spoke
of it as a model comedy of the finest
wit and the most delightful mirth. Nor
has it been without honor in it's own
country Coleridge says: IF this ju-
venile drama had been the only one
extant of our Shakespeare, and we pos
sessed the tradition only of his ripper
works, how many of Shakespeare
characteristic features might we not
still have discovered, though as in a
portrait of him taken in his boyllood."
Charles Lamb loved it as the comedy
of leisure, most nonsense, best sense":
and Pater has devoted to it one of the
most charming of his charming appre-
Citations
History of the Play.
All critics agree that Loves Labor's
Lost" is one of the earliest of Shakes
peare's plays, and some Of the highest
authorities rank it as his first indie
pendent work. General consent puts the
date of its composition somewhere be-
tween 1888 and 1892. We need not trol-
BILE ourselves about the exact year.
When we know that we have in Loves
Labor's Lost one of the earliest. if not
the very. first, of Shakespeare's crea-
tons in the field of poetic comedy, we
know enough,
The statement that it is one of his
earliest creations applies, however. only
to the first draft of Loves Labor's
Lost and not to the drama. as it lies
before us today. On the title page of