Love’s Labour’s Lost Play: Overview & Resources

Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost play is set in Navarre in the Pyrenees,  around what is the modern Pamplona, famous for bullfighting. Read more aboue Love’s Labour’s Lost settings.

 Date written: 1595

Genre classification: Love’s Labour’s Lost is a Comedy play.

Main characters in Love’s Labour’s Lost:
Ferdinand: King of Navarre, who woos the princess of France.
Princess of France: Beautiful woman who captures the heart of the King of Navarre
Berowne: Lord at Ferdinand’s court. He is in love with Rosaline.
Rosaline: Lady attending the Princess of France.
Longaville: Lord at Ferdinand’s court. He is in love with Maria.
Maria: Lady attending the Princess of France.
Dumain: Lord at Ferdinand’s court. He is in love with Katherine.
Katherine: Lady attending the Princess of France.
Don Adriano de Armado: Garrulous knight who loves Jaquenetta passionately.

See full list of characters in Love’s Labour’s Lost.

Love’s Labour’s Lost themes: Those who claim to love someone can’t be trusted until they have proved themselves over time. Other themes are the contrast between one’s desires and the effort required to bring them about, and that there is only one kind of love – that of a man for a woman – love of learning comes a poor second.

The play is also a satire on the ineffectiveness of the attempted invasion of England by the Spanish when the Spanish armada was defeated by a smaller English fleet, reflecting on the bumbling, pathetic action of the Spanish King, Philip II.