Mockery and Merriment
in
Love’s Labour’s Lost
Shakespeare has a lot of love stories in
his plays but many of them are filled with cruelty. Orsino threatens to kill
Viola. Claudio accuses Hero of being a whore. Demetrius and Lysander insult,
threaten and abandon Helena and Hermia. Et cetera.
But in Love’s
Labour’s Lost the men are quite sincerely and kindly in love and the women,
well, they are too, though they mock and ridicule their wooers and do very
little passionate swooning. When it comes right down to it, they make demands
on their men – a year of various sacrifices – before they will consider
marriage.
The exchanges between the four pairs of
lovers and the triangle of Armado, Costard and Jaquenetta, are merry enough and
the mocking is gentle and humorous. But the mockery of the women for the men is
nothing compared to how the play itself mocks love – oh, these silly young men
and their love! Mocks oaths –
Shakespeare is filled with broken oaths but rarely so humorously as here. Mocks
scholars and ivory tower learning and passionate poetic pedants.
All in the warmest tone of merriment. Words
piled on words, tongue-twisting tirades and joyful punning. The characters
themselves repeatedly mention the mocking and the merriment. It’s almost as
though they know that Shakespeare is having great fun writing the play, and
they’re having great fun living in it.
And so, though we breathlessly fail to keep
up with the exuberant loquaciousness, it is great fun both reading and watching
this play.
Oh, Hamlet, words, words, words can be so
wonderful!
Film seen this
time:
Read ‘Finding a Few Things’ in Shakespeare calling – the book available
here:
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