Editing Love's Labour's Lost (section)

==Sources==
[[File:First-page-first-folio-love's-labors-lost.jpg|thumb|The first page of the play in the [[First Folio]] (1623)]]''Love's Labour's Lost'' may be found to have a number of sources for various aspects, but a primary source for the story is not extant. It has this in common with two other Shakespeare plays – ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]'' and ''[[The Tempest]]''.{{sfn|Woudhuysen|1998|pp=61–73}} Some possible influences on ''Love's Labour's Lost'' can be found in the early plays of [[John Lyly]], [[Robert Wilson (dramatist)|Robert Wilson]]'s ''The Cobbler's Prophecy'' (c. 1590) and [[Pierre de La Primaudaye]]'s ''L'Academie française'' (1577).<ref>Kerrigan, J. ed. "Love's Labours Lost", New Penguin Shakespeare, Harmondsworth 1982, {{ISBN|0-14-070738-7}}</ref> Michael Dobson and [[Stanley Wells]] comment that it has often been conjectured that the plot derives from "a now lost account of a diplomatic visit made to Henry in 1578 by [[Catherine de' Medici]] and her daughter [[Marguerite de Valois]], Henry's estranged wife, to discuss the future of Aquitaine, but this is by no means certain."<ref name=dob>Dobson, M. and Wells, S. ''The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare'', Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 264</ref>

The four main male characters are all loosely based on historical figures; Navarre is based on Henry of Navarre (who later became [[Henry IV of France]]), Berowne on [[Charles de Gontaut, duc de Biron]], Dumain on [[Charles, Duke of Mayenne|Charles, duc de Mayenne]] and Longaville on [[Henri I d'Orléans, duc de Longueville]].<ref>[[George Richard Hibbard|G.R. Hibbard]] (ed), ''Love's Labour's Lost'' (Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 49</ref> Biron in particular was well known in England because [[Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex]], had joined forces with Biron's army in support of Henry in 1591.<ref name=dob/> Albert Tricomi states that "the play's humorous idealization could remain durable as long as the French names of its principal characters remained familiar to Shakespeare's audiences. This means that the witty portrayal of Navarre's court could remain reasonably effective until the assassination of Henry IV in 1610. ... Such considerations suggest that the portrayals of Navarre and the civil-war generals presented Elizabethan audiences not with a mere collection of French names in the news, but with an added dramatic dimension which, once lost, helps to account for the eclipse ''Love's Labour's Lost'' soon underwent."<ref name=Tricomi>{{cite journal|last=Tricomi| first=Albert| title=The Witty Idealization of the French Court in Love's Labor's Lost|journal=Shakespeare Studies| year=1979| volume=12|pages=25–33}}</ref>

Critics have attempted to draw connections between notable [[Elizabethan]] English persons and the characters of Don Armado, Moth, Sir Nathaniel, and Holofernes, with little success.<ref name=Tricomi/>