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Love’s Labour’s Lost is a comedy, one of three main genres (the others being tragedy and history) performed in Elizabethan theatre. The comedy was typically constructed around a romantic plot. William Shakespeare ties Love’s Labour’s Lost into this genre, utilizing common features: the play within a play, mistaken identity, letters going astray, the neat symmetry of lovers. However, Shakespeare actively explores this form as well: He subverts the expected happy ending, which Berowne explicitly notes does not fit with the generic conventions.
Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing is generally dated to around 1598-1599, and features some thematic similarities and shared plot devices with Love’s Labour’s Lost. For example, both use disguises to facilitate conversations at cross-purposes. Rosaline and Berowne and Beatrice and Benedict use argumentative sparring as a means of courtship. Benedict and Berowne are both initially reluctant lovers: Benedict becomes completely earnest once he believes Beatrice loves him; Berowne accepts his feelings throughout the course of the play. Both explore love through long soliloquies, using military language to present love as a dangerous competition and suggest that it changes men from a militaristic
By William Shakespeare
All's Well That Ends Well
All's Well That Ends Well
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A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
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Antony and Cleopatra
Antony and Cleopatra
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As You Like It
As You Like It
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Coriolanus
Coriolanus
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Cymbeline
Cymbeline
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Hamlet
Hamlet
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Henry IV, Part 1
Henry IV, Part 1
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Henry IV, Part 2
Henry IV, Part 2
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Henry V
Henry V
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Henry VIII
Henry VIII
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Henry VI, Part 1
Henry VI, Part 1
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Henry VI, Part 3
Henry VI, Part 3
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Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
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King John
King John
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King Lear
King Lear
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Macbeth
Macbeth
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Measure For Measure
Measure For Measure
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Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing
William Shakespeare
Othello
Othello
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