《愛的徒勞》是莎士比亞早期格調最為明快的喜劇之一。故事梗概是：那瓦國國王和三個貴族朝臣，發誓三年不近色，不料法國國王派公主帶三名侍女前來談判某地歸屬問題，四名男子很快放棄初衷，各自墮入情網。於是四對男女演出了一系列風流滑稽戲，最後法國使者忽然來報法國國王去世，公主必須立即回去，公主 代表女方規定。男方必須等待一年，以觀是否變習，四位女士飄然離去，儘管劇名為"愛的徒勞"，但從劇情來看，該劇所表現的是愛能成戰勝一切。
莎翁在劇中以巧妙的情節創造出許多使觀眾 捧腹的笑料，嘲笑了摒棄愛情的禁欲主義，也嘲笑了愛情的盲目性。全劇到處都 是文字遊戲和雙關語，劇中所包容的社會各個階層，從國王、大臣到農業、小丑，其語言無不各具特色，符合人物各自的身份，此劇還穿插了不省清新、優美的歌曲和民歌，這些民歌都富有詩意，散發著英國鄉間泥土的清香，充分表現了莎士比亞的語言天才。
From the Royal Shakespeare Company -- a fresh new edition of Shakespeare's dazzling comedy. This book includes: * An introduction to Love's Labour's Lost by award-winning scholar Jonathan Bate * The play -- with clear explanatory notes on each page * A scene-by-scene analysis * An introduction to Shakespeare's career and the Elizabethan theatre * A rich exploration of approaches to staging the play The most enjoyable way to understand a Shakespeare play is to see it or participate in it. This book presents a historical overview of Love's Labour's Lost in performance, recommends film versions, takes a detailed look at specific productions and includes interviews with three leading Directors -- Terry Hands, Liz Shipman and Gregory Doran-- so that we may get a sense of the extraordinary variety of interpretations that are possible - a variety that gives Shakespeare his unique capacity to be reinvented and made 'our contemporary' four centuries after his death.
About the Author
JONATHAN BATE is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature, University of Warwick, UK, and the editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He has held visiting posts at Harvard, Yale and UCLA and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Fellow of St Catherine's College, Cambridge, and a Governor and Board member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. A prominent critic, award-winning biographer and broadcaster, he is the author of several books on Shakespeare, including The Genius of Shakespeare (Picador), which was praised by Sir Peter Hall, founder of the RSC, as "the best modern book on Shakespeare." In June 2006 he was awarded a CBE by HM The Queen 'for services to Higher Education'. ERIC RASMUSSEN is Professor of English at the University of Nevada, USA, and the Textual Editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He is co-editor of the Norton Anthology of English Renaissance Drama and has edited volumes in both the Arden Shakespeare and Oxford World's Classics series. He is the General Textual Editor of the Internet Shakespeare Editions project - one of the most visited Shakespeare websites in the world. For over nine years he has written the annual review of editions and textual studies for the Shakespeare Survey.
