Love's Labour's Won

"Love's Labour's Won", alternatively written "Love's labour's wonne", is the name of a play written by William Shakespeare before 1598. However, it is not known if this play has been lost, or if the title is an alternate name for a known play.

Evidence

Francis Meres's "Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury" (1598) lists several of Shakespeare's plays. His list of comedies reads as follows: :"for Comedy, witnes his "Gẽtlemẽ of Verona", his "Errors", his "Love labors loſt", his "Love labours wonne", his "Midſummers night dreame", & his "Merchant of Venice";"This tells us that "Love's Labour's Won" was a comedy and that it was not one of the other plays listed.

For many years, it was assumed that "Love's Labour's Won" was an alternative name for "The Taming of the Shrew". However, in 1953, Pottesman discovered the August 1603 booklist of the stationer Christopher Hunt, which lists as printed in quarto: :"Marchant Of Vennis [sic] , Taming Of A Shrew, Loves Labour Lost, Loves Labour Won."

Theories

Many scholars now believe that "Love's Labour's Won" may have been a lost sequel to "Love's Labour's Lost", depicting the further adventures of The King of Navarre, Berowne, Longaville, and Dumaine, whose marriages were delayed at the end of "Love's Labour's Lost".Fact|date=July 2007

The other possibility is that it is an alternative title for another Shakespearean comedy not listed by Meres or Hunt.Fact|date=July 2007 "Much Ado About Nothing", commonly believed to be written around 1598 [See textual notes to "Much Ado about Nothing" in "The Norton Shakespeare" (W. W. Norton & Company, 1997 ISBN 0-393-97087-6) p. 1387] , is often suggested. "All's Well That Ends Well" has also been suggested. For example, Henry Woudhuysen's Arden edition of "Love's Labour's Lost" points out a number of striking similarities between the two plays. However, "All's Well" is normally dated after 1600, and hence after Meres wrote his list.Fact|date=August 2007

Modern version

*In Autumn 2005, a play by Dorothy Louise titled "Love's Labour's Wonne" debuted at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It is based on the following premise::"At the end of Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Lost", news of the death of the Princess's father halts four couples on the road to matrimony. Everything stops, including the entertainment prepared for the festivities, as the Princess prepares to return home. The couples agree to meet again in a year and a day and disperse to a song of spring and winter. The play implies a sequel, and apparently there was one, of which only the title, "Love's Labour's Wonne", has survived — at least, so far." [http://www.fandm.edu/x9633.xml]

*There is also a play of the title "Love Labours Won" by Ryan J-W Smith with an all female cast. It premiered at the 2006 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and transferred to London's West End shortly after. However, it is not related in any way to "Love's Labour's Lost".

Popular culture

In Brahms and Simon's "No Bed for Bacon", Shakespeare is always trying to find time during the rehearsals of his plays to write "Love's Labour's Wonne", but never gets beyond the title.

The play is featured in "The Shakespeare Code", an episode of the science fiction drama "Doctor Who" first broadcast on 7 April 2007. In the episode, the play is lost because it was written under the influence of "magic" from the Carrionites, a witchlike race. When the Carrionites plan is ruined, all the copies of the play are expelled with them.

It also is featured in the novels "Love Lies Bleeding" (1948) by Edmund Crispin, "Ruled Britannia" (2002) by Harry Turtledove, and Harvard Yard (2003) by William Martin.

References

*Baldwin, T.W. "Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Won: New Evidence from the Account Books of an Elizabethan Bookseller". Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1957.