Where is Love’s Labor’s Won?
Wickham, maligned above, suggests that there is no couple in As You Like It that corresponds to the Armado/Jaquenetta pair in Love’s Labor’s Lost because the boy who had played Jaquenetta had grown too old. Such an explanation is perfectly possible — but Shakespeare had no need to resolve this fifth wooing in As You Like It, because it had already ended happily in Love’s Labor’s Lost.
I have put some of the possible correspondences and antitheses of As You Like It and Love’s Labor’s Lost into a beautiful table.
| Love’s Labor’s Lost | As You Like It |
|---|---|
| The play is set in France. | The play is set in France. |
| Two of the most important characters are the Princess and Rosaline. | Two of the most important characters are the Princess[17] and Rosalind. |
| The season changes from spring to winter. | The season changes from winter to spring. |
| Time travels at one pace for the courts and at another for Jaquenetta. | Rosalind: “Time travels in divers paces with divers persons” (III.2.302). |
| It concerns Aquitaine. | It concerns Aquitaine. |
| The loving lords write flawed sonnets. | Orlando the lover writes a flawed sonnet. |
| The ladies send their lovers on a quest. | The lovers return successful from a quest.[18] |
| The lovers are cast out of Eden. | The lovers return to Eden. |
| The play ends with four refused marriage proposals. | The play ends with four marriages. |
Besides, suppose we all were allowed to go back into the Garden of Eden — wouldn’t that be As You Like It?
I might write QED under my table, but in fact nobody needs to take my word for this, and practically nobody will. Partisans of Much Ado and other candidates will continue to shout and wave their partisans, and that, after all, is not different from what I have been doing, spouting my logics and waving my table. If we were to find a manuscript of a play called Love’s Labor’s Won, signed by Shakespeare, would it help resolve the quarrel? Of course not. Each scholar would ingeniously prove that the discovery enlarged and decorated the head of his or her own hobbyhorse, and Oxfordians would declare that it proves once and for all that the plays were written by Lord Vere.
REFERENCES
Celia is twice referred to as “Princess” by Le Beau in I.2.
- Orlando and Oliver succeed in their quests: Orlando proves himself indisputably faithful and Oliver finds his lost brother. Touchstone vanquishes his rival William.
Printed from Cerise Press: http://www.cerisepress.com
Permalink URL: https://www.cerisepress.com/02/04/where-is-loves-labors-won
Page 5 of 5 was printed. Select View All pagination to print all pages.
