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The King's criticism, too, of Armado in the first scene is more finely
characteristic of Shakespeare than Biron's criticism of Boyet in the
last act. In this, his first drama, Shakespeare can hardly sketch a
sympathetic character without putting something of himself into it.
I regard "Love's Labour's Lost" as Shakespeare's earliest comedy, not
only because the greater part of it is in rhymed verse, but also because
he was unable in it to individualize his serious personages at all; the
comic characters, on the other hand, are already carefully observed and
distinctly differenced. Biron himself is scarcely more than a charming
sketch: he is almost as interested in language as in love, and he plays
with words till they revenge themselves by obscuring his wit; he is
filled with the high spirits of youth; in fact, he shows us the form and
pressure of the Renaissance as clearly as the features of Shakespeare.
It is, however, Biron-Shakespeare, who understands that the real world
is built on broader natural foundations than the King's womanless
Academe, and therefore predicts the failure of the ascetic experiment.
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