*Love's Battles Fought

I know I already talked about seeing Love's Labours Lost, but for class purposes I now need to put forth a more detailed analysis on the battle between the sexes in the play.

As in most of Shakespeare's comedies, the two sexes engage in a battle of wits and love, and this one is no exception. The men try to assert their power first by keeping the women outside the kingdom. Women are a distraction to their serious course of study. But after giving into necessities of state and the king falling in love with the princess and each lord with a lady, they try to win their loves. Played uniquely in this production with boyish charms and naivete when it comes to love, they attempt to woo their ladies' love 'by the book.' This means contrived and cliche songs and poetry. The ladies find this laughable, but mostly they think it insincere. So to get the better of the men they play tricks on the men. When they come in person, the ladies mask themselves and switch round the tokens sent by the men so that each man woos the wrong lady. The men think they have won and return only to see what the women have done. And of course the women have to make fun of the men for being so easily taken in.

The next question to address is the reality of the situation. I think it very realistic. People often test the other, try to catch them up in their words, turning the words against them. Today these jests and games are not quite as overt, but then again masks and revels are not part of the usual cultural activities today. Yet how many girls have used their friends or roommates to establish the level of a boy's affections? The indirect and often sneaky methods of testing a courtship still exist. And that is just one part of the puzzle of how 400 year old Shakespeare plays are still around and applicable to today. As Anne Perry said about Dickens, it's the understanding and portrayal of human emotions that keeps these works alive.