Description
Book Synopsis Shakespeare''s comedy Love''s Labour''s Lost has perplexed scholars and theatergoers for over 400 years due to its linguistic complexity, obscure topical allusions and decidedly non-comedic ending. According to traditional interpretations, it is Shakespeare''s French play, based on events and characters from the French Wars of Religion.
This work argues that the play''s French surface conceals a Russian core. It outlines an interpretation of Love''s Labour''s Lost rooted in diplomatic and trade relations between Russia and Elizabethan England during the dramatic decades following England''s discovery of a northern trade route to Muscovy in 1553. Drawing on original research of 16th-century sources in English, Latin and French, the text also surveys Russian sources previously unavailable in translation. This analysis provides new explanations for some of the play''s previously most enigmatic elements, such as its unconventional ending, the significance of it
Trade Review
Love's Labours Lost is filled with puzzles and lost in-jokes, until now, with the author having discovered the key: insider Elizabethan court knowledge within the further context of 16th-century Anglo-Russian diplomatic relations. The author's comprehension of the entire history of the scholarship, criticism, and theater history concerning the play, and of Russian history and language, is detailed and thorough. This work thus solves a 400-year-old problem."—Michael Delahoyde, professor of English, Washington State University
Table of Contents
- Table of Contents
- Timeline: Historical Events in England, Russia and Europe, 1530–1649
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part I—Love's Labors: Mary, Elizabeth and Ivan, 1553–1584
- 1. Seasick Coming from Muscovy
- 2. What Buys Your Company?
- 3. The Ambassadors of Love
- 4. The Armipotent Mars
- 5. The Empress of Muscovy
- 6. The Soldier, the Clown and the Wench
- Part II—Labors Lost: Elizabeth and Godunov, 1584–1598
- 7. The Curate, the Pedant and the Boy
- 8. A Feast of Languages
- 9. Heirs of All Eternity
- 10. The Pageant of the Nine Worthies
- Epilogue: You This Way, We That Way
- Chapter Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
