本劇描述拿伐國王與他的三位侍臣共同立下誓約,言明在三年之內不與任何女子交談,並專心研究學術,但他們在立完誓約之後,就立刻面臨了重大的考驗,因為他們分別迷戀上了法國公主與她的三位侍女,他們到底該嚴守誓約,還是該追求心愛的人?四人於是徘徊在矛盾邊緣……。《愛的徒勞》是莎士比亞在1954年的作品,此劇中莎翁以幽默的筆法,諷刺當時裝腔作勢的社會風氣,劇中你來我往唇槍舌戰的內容非常適合在舞台上演出,此劇也是莎翁早期喜劇作品中,最具諷刺意味的劇幕。
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.
作者簡介:
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.