Questions on
Shakespeare’s Comedies
Shakespeare, William. Love’s Labor’s Lost. Folio. (The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies, 3rd ed. 333-94.)
ACT 1
1. At the beginning of Act 1, Scene 1, what proposition does King Ferdinand of Navarre repeat for the audience and for the benefit of the men who have already verbally pledged to participate in it? In the most general terms, what is to be done, where is it to be done, and what is the purpose of such a scheme? (The details follow in the rest of the scene.)
2. In Act 1, Scene 1, in the dialogue between the key male characters, what specific rules emerge as the fabric of the general scheme that King Ferdinand has devised? What will life be like for the four men—the King, Longueville, Dumaine, and Biron—who will undertake the prescribed three years of intense study? In the main, what things and activities must they either avoid or, in some cases, strictly limit?
3. In Act 1, Scene 1, since Biron is the most hesitant about signing on to King Ferdinand’s three-year plan with its strong set of do’s and don’ts, how does this lord explain the reasoning that underlies his doubts? What does Biron question both about the plan’s particulars and about its more general and supposedly serious and philosophical purpose?
4. In Act 1, Scene 1, even in the first hundred lines or so, readers of Love’s Labor’s Lost will no doubt have noticed that it is full of elaborate figures and elegant poetry. Focus on one major example, which is the English sonnet (rhyming abab cdcd efef gg) that Biron speaks from lines 80-93. What argument against excessive learning—and in favor of passion—does this sonnet advance? Why is the sonnet form more effective in the present context than either prose or unrhymed iambic pentameter?
5. In Act 1, Scene 1, the monarch at the center of things is Ferdinand of Navarre, whom scholars have long recognized as an analog of, or allusion to, the historical ruler Henry of Navarre, who by 1589 had been crowned as King Henry IV of France, and who by 1593 had converted to Catholicism. Do some research (possibly including the American Shakespeare Center’s July 2017 post “The Dark Side of Love’s Labour’s Lost”), and try to explain the significance of the historical underpinnings of Shakespeare’s otherwise light-hearted comic play. Another source: “Elizabethan Views of the ‘Other’: French, Spanish, and Russians in Love’s Labor’s Lost.” Felicia Londre. Elizabethan Review Spring-Summer 1995, Volume 3, Number 1.
6. In Act 1, Scene 1, for what offense is the clown, Costard, to be punished? We know that the King expects much entertainment or “recreation” from the company of Armado during his long learning experiment in Navarre. So how do the King and others present judge Armado’s style in the letter he has sent to them regarding Costard’s offense? What sentence does the King pass on Costard, and in what spirit does the latter receive this sentence? According to Biron at scene’s end, what lesson should the King take from Costard’s behavior?
7. In Act 1, Scene 2, Armado trades witticisms with his assistant or “page,” Mote. What kind of relationship do these two seem to have? What image of Armado emerges from this conversation? What affliction does he ask the Page to comfort him about, and what effect do the Page’s observations have on his master?
8. In Act 1, Scene 2, after he is through speaking to the Page, Costard, and Jaquenetta, what reflections does Armado offer with regard to his predicament as a soldier who has fallen suddenly in love with a young woman? How does he plan to deal with “Cupid,” or in other words to pursue Jaquenetta’s affections?
ACT 2
9. In Act 2, Scene 1, the Princess and Boyet converse. How does she receive the praise this attendant lord gives her? If it annoys her, why? What message does she send to the King of Navarre by way of Boyet? What does the Princess do to accommodate the male courtly society she is entering in Navarre?
10. In Act 2, Scene 1, Maria, Katherine, and Rosaline share observations about Longueville, Dumaine, and Biron. How do the women respectively characterize the wit and manners of these men? How do they parse the strengths and weaknesses of each?
11. In Act 2, Scene 1, when the King of Navarre enters, how should we regard the diplomatic and financial negotiations that go on between the Princess and the King? How does she react to his insistence on lodging her and the women in her party outside the court and in the open field? What is the Princess’s mission? Who gets the best of whom in the conversation, and how so?
12. In Act 2, Scene 1, while the Princess and the King of Navarre engage in diplomacy over money and Aquitaine, we also hear Biron and Rosaline’s first encounter, which is short but sharp. What is the subject, and how does Rosaline manage to expose the egocentric quality of Biron’s conversation? All the same, in what sense does this brief exchange perhaps mark them as potential partners?
13. In Act 2, Scene 1, Longueville, Dumaine, and Biron begin to inquire of Boyet about the women who catch their eye, and Boyet passes along his observations to the Princess concerning the King of Navarre’s interest in her. Which woman has caught the attention of each man, respectively? How does Boyet discern and describe the King’s attraction to the Princess? Does Boyet himself seem somewhat frustrated? Explain.
ACT 3
14. In Act 3, Scene 1, what advice does the Page offer Armado about his love pursuit of Jaquenetta in this conversation? How, according to the Page’s innuendo-filled responses, should Armado bear himself while in love, and how can he win the object of his affections?
15. In Act 3, Scene 1, Armado tells the Page, Mote, to free the rustic clown Costard and bring him into his presence. What task does he pay Costard to carry out? Consider, too, the playful, suggestive banter that moves this scene along, including the conversations between Armado and the Page, and then adding Costard into the mix with his misunderstandings. Aside from comic relief, how does this eccentric style of talking relate to and reflect on the language, manners, and pursuits of the aristocratic characters in the play?
16. In Act 3, Scene 1, Biron espies Costard as he makes his way towards fulfilling the task given him by Armado, and gives him a new task, which is to deliver a love letter to Rosaline. Once he is alone, what self-reproaches does Biron air? What blame does he cast on love itself, what does he suggest about Rosaline’s qualities, and with what resolution does his soliloquy end?
ACT 4
17. In Act 4, Scene 1, what is the connection between the Princess’s quips about deer hunting and the play’s emphasis on love pursuits? The idea of love as involving a chase or a hunt is common from ancient literature onwards, so how does Shakespeare inflect it in this sophisticated comedy about European nobility? In your response, address the way this trope is folded into the Princess’s slightly flirtatious comments to the Forester who is helping her with the mechanics of archery.
18. In Act 4, Scene 1, Costard mistakenly delivers Armado’s letter not to Jaquenetta but to the Princess, and the letter is read out loud to the aristocratic company. How does this letter represent Armado’s love pursuit of Jaquenetta, and what do the nobles think of its “Euphuistic” eccentricities? (Look up Euphues, Euphuism.) How do the various puns about archery (“hitting the target,” etc.) then cap off the scene?
19. In Act 4, Scene 2, Nathaniel and Holofernes converse, and Constable Dull joins in. What’s the basic subject of the conversation, and why do the more learned characters tolerate Dull’s inept attempts to join in? What does Holofernes say about the benefits of learning or education? How does his opinion compare to the way learning was described in the first act? What does Holofernes say about his own gifts as an academician?
20. In Act 4, Scene 2, Jaquenetta and Costard visit Holofernes and the Parson, and ask the latter to read a letter that Costard, as it turns out, has misdelivered on Biron’s behalf. Biron’s sonnet is read aloud by Nathaniel. What is the sonnet’s subject, and what does Holofernes, the quintessential fussy literary critic, make of its qualities? What does Nathaniel tell Jaquenetta to do with this letter?
21. In Act 4, Scene 3, Biron continues to lament his love-stricken case, though this time in prose, and eavesdrops on the self-implicating poems—the King’s extended or “caudate” (tailed) English sonnet, Longueville’s standard English sonnet, and Dumaine’s couplet-rhyming “ode.” Describe the successive acts of eavesdropping, exposure, and mockery that take place in this episode up to line 279, when the King and the others turn to Biron for perspective. In particular, how does the King make fun of Biron for his choice of Rosaline, and how does Biron defend himself and his love interest from such mockery?
22. In Act 4, Scene 3, from line 279 forward, Biron is called upon to stop defending himself and instead to provide a mature perspective on the men’s common predicament. Describe Biron’s essentially Neoplatonic defense of love—not mere pedantry or scholarly imperatives—as the true ground of learning. What are the elements of this argument in favor of an “erotics of learning,” as he lays them out? How does romantic attraction and love affect the spirit and the intellect, according to Biron? What quasi-religious transformation does it bring about in lovers?
23. In Act 4, Scene 3, what resolution does Biron’s impassioned defense of passion as the ground of academic excellence lead the King, Biron himself, Longueville and Dumaine to affirm? What plans do they make with regard to the objects of their affection (the Princess, Rosaline, Maria, and Katherine)? How has their attitude towards time suddenly shifted, and why?
ACT 5
24. In Act 5, Scene 1, what general portrait and specific criticisms of Armado’s style does Holofernes offer the curate Nathaniel and others as they gather in the King’s park? How does the Page take the pedant Holofernes down a peg or two? When Armado arrives, what exciting news does he announce to all present, and how do plans concerning it begin to shape up in the last part of this brief scene?
25. In Act 5, Scene 2, Boyet alerts the Princess and her female entourage (who have just been sharing news about the gifts given to them by the lords of Navarre) to the King of Navarre and his lords’ plan to court them anonymously as “Muscovites.” What strategy do the women devise to counter this move, and what two main reasons does the Princess advance for wanting to counter it?
26. In Act 5, Scene 2, how does the counter-strategy that the Princess and her ladies devise, once put into operation, play out? Why does it so easily confound the men’s efforts at courting them? Choose at least one example of a lady’s conversation with one of the men, and explain how she gets the better of him. Also, what is the significance of the ladies’ collective refusal to dance?
27. In Act 5, Scene 2, when the King of Navarre and his three lords have finished their attempted courtship and left the women to talk among themselves, how do the latter reckon up the weaknesses each man has shown in his courting exercise? What is the ladies’ general account of the lords’ quality as suitors? What is the current situation—who has plighted faith to whom among the four respective couples? How do the Princess and her women plan to follow up their advantage over the men?
28. In Act 5, Scene 2, when the King and his lords regroup, what tribute does Biron pay to the Princess’s counselor Boyet—what qualities and abilities does he admire in this French lord? Up to this point, how important has Boyet been to the play’s action, themes, and ambience? Choose a few instances of Boyet’s skills in action—for example, his baffling of the Page’s prologue at the beginning of the men’s suit to the ladies—and discuss his significance.
29. In Act 5, Scene 2, when the lords and ladies come back together after an awkward attempt at courtship, the latter inform the men that each of them delivered his private, earnest vow to the wrong woman. Catalog the verse forms in this sophisticated segment from lines 338-484. How do these forms affect our perception of the exchange as a whole? In particular, focus on Biron’s multiply extended caudate sonnet (i.e. sonnet with extra lines): in what sense is this sonnet ironic when we compare its structure and language with the promise it makes to the ladies? How do Rosaline and the Princess take its message?
30. In Act 5, Scene 2, following a bit of unpleasantness between the flustered Biron and Boyet, Holofernes and his crew stage their “Nine Worthies” pageant (i.e., a series of scenes, in this case presenting five—not nine—mythical and historical figures) for the aristocratic lords and ladies. Why does the King try to prevent the performance, and why does the Princess overrule him—what critical principles does she lay out from lines 513-18? As the pageant proceeds, what factors—in addition to the bare performances—come together to entertain the noble audience? All the same, what news brought in by Costard, and then by Marcadé, causes the pageant to end in an unexpected manner?
31. In Act 5, Scene 2, with the announcement of the King of France’s death, the Princess must return home suddenly and mourn her father’s passing. But first, how does she answer the King of Navarre when he impertinently tries to bring his and the lords’ courtship to a quick, happy conclusion to match the diplomatic success of the Princess’s embassy? (He is seconded by Biron’s gambit of speciously blaming the ladies for allegedly causing the men to break their scholarly vows.) Why does she reject an immediate betrothal, and what must her suitor do to win her love? What makes this requirement or test so appropriate to the circumstances?
32. In Act 5, Scene 2, after the Princess sets forth her conditions for eventual acceptance of the King of Navarre’s suit, what conditions do Rosaline, Katherine, and Maria lay out respectively for Biron, Dumaine, and Longueville? How is each set of conditions calibrated to fit the defects or shortcomings of each man in his turn?
33. At the end of Act 5, Scene 2, a chastened Armado returns to the stage and announces that he will serve his love, Jaquenetta, for three years to solidify their relationship. He has one last question—would the King and those still present like to hear the dialogue between the owl and the cuckoo that Holofernes and Nathaniel have apparently worked up to end the pageant? Yes, His Majesty would, and the dialogue is sung in turn by “Spring” (who focuses on the cuckoo) and “Winter” (who focuses on the owl). What connection may be asserted between this concluding dialogue’s internal themes and the broader action and themes of Love’s Labor’s Lost?
34. General question. This play is sometimes said by critics to be somewhat thin with respect to its action, its plot. In truth, it consists mostly of dialogue rather than substantial activity. Still, it isn’t, as some people quipped (admiringly or otherwise) about the celebrated comic series Seinfeld, about nothing. What qualities, then, provide both the entertainment value and any “heft” that we might care to attribute to this comic play?
35. General question. Especially in his comedies, Shakespeare sometimes exposes to scrutiny the intensity, even the excessiveness, of the oaths and promises that various characters tend to make and then repeatedly reaffirm, with an emphasis on the evasiveness and shallowness of these forms of speech as well as the peril that they may bring in their train. How does Love’s Labor’s Lost inflect this frequent Shakespearean concern? In what sense does the admonition apply particularly to some of the play’s male characters?
Edition. Greenblatt, Stephen et al., editors. The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies + Digital Edition. 3rd ed. W. W. Norton, 2016. ISBN-13: 978-0-393-93861-6.
Copyright © 2025 Alfred J. Drake
Document Timestamp: 11/14/2025 7:16 PM