Author: William Shakespeare

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2016-09-09

Total Pages: 68

ISBN-13: 9781333538071

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Excerpt from Love's Labour's Lost: A Comedy in Five Acts The previous revivals were commenced with Twelfth Night and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Theinterest which such an event must necessarily create is of that kind which passes beyond merely dramatic circles, and engages the attention oflittera tears, and in a more general way of every observer of the progress of art in the United States. Love's Labour's Lost has never been acted in the City of New York, or, ifit has, there is at least no record extant. Of any such performance. A brief but unimportant revival took place, however, in 1858 at the Arch Street Theatre, Philadelphia. It is nearly thirty-five years ago since the play was acted in London, the last performance being at the Covent Garden Theatre, in September, 1839. Though the play is thus unfamiliar to the stage, it is one of the best known in the closet, and possesses an especial interest in the fact that it is one of the oldest in the language. Love's Labour's Lost is conceded to be the first play which Shakespeare wrote, the great dramatist being then thirty years of age. Mr. Malone is of Opinion that Shakespeare commenced to write for the stage in his twenty-seventh year, His first work, accord ing to his own statement. Was Venus and Adonis, which was not published, however, until 1593. Malone places the production of Love's Labour's Lost at 1594. But Coleridge thinks that it must have been planned much earlier no doubt before the dramatist left Stratford and went up to London. He thinks that it was a boyish production, which was afterward retouched and improved, and in sustainment of this view observes that the characters in the play are such as a country town and school-boy's observation might supply. In one of his essays the same writer observes: Yet, if this juvenile drama had been the only one extant of our Shakespeare, and we possessed the tradition only of his riper works, or accounts of them in some writers who had not even men tioned this play, how many of Shakespeare's characteristic features might we not still have discovered in 'love's Labour's Lost, ' though as on a portrait of him taken in his boyhood. In respect to the characters of the drama, however, Coleridge observes that they may not be the fruits of observation, but imper sonated out of Shakespeare's own multiformity, for, he says, the transcendent genius in its very earliest utterances produced marvels of outline or suggestion, as in riper years it produced wonders of finish and perfect form. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Download or read book Love's Labour's Lost written by William Shakespeare and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2016-09-09 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Love's Labour's Lost: A Comedy in Five Acts The previous revivals were commenced with Twelfth Night and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Theinterest which such an event must necessarily create is of that kind which passes beyond merely dramatic circles, and engages the attention oflittera tears, and in a more general way of every observer of the progress of art in the United States. Love's Labour's Lost has never been acted in the City of New York, or, ifit has, there is at least no record extant. Of any such performance. A brief but unimportant revival took place, however, in 1858 at the Arch Street Theatre, Philadelphia. It is nearly thirty-five years ago since the play was acted in London, the last performance being at the Covent Garden Theatre, in September, 1839. Though the play is thus unfamiliar to the stage, it is one of the best known in the closet, and possesses an especial interest in the fact that it is one of the oldest in the language. Love's Labour's Lost is conceded to be the first play which Shakespeare wrote, the great dramatist being then thirty years of age. Mr. Malone is of Opinion that Shakespeare commenced to write for the stage in his twenty-seventh year, His first work, accord ing to his own statement. Was Venus and Adonis, which was not published, however, until 1593. Malone places the production of Love's Labour's Lost at 1594. But Coleridge thinks that it must have been planned much earlier no doubt before the dramatist left Stratford and went up to London. He thinks that it was a boyish production, which was afterward retouched and improved, and in sustainment of this view observes that the characters in the play are such as a country town and school-boy's observation might supply. In one of his essays the same writer observes: Yet, if this juvenile drama had been the only one extant of our Shakespeare, and we possessed the tradition only of his riper works, or accounts of them in some writers who had not even men tioned this play, how many of Shakespeare's characteristic features might we not still have discovered in 'love's Labour's Lost, ' though as on a portrait of him taken in his boyhood. In respect to the characters of the drama, however, Coleridge observes that they may not be the fruits of observation, but imper sonated out of Shakespeare's own multiformity, for, he says, the transcendent genius in its very earliest utterances produced marvels of outline or suggestion, as in riper years it produced wonders of finish and perfect form. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.