SOURCE: "The Failure of Relationship Between Men and Women in Love's Labor's Lost," in Women's Studies, Vol. 9, No. 1, 1981, pp. 65-81.

Below, Erickson examines the issues of love and power between men and women as they are presented in the play, arguing that the male characters 'foolishness and the female characters ' dominance prevent this comedy from ending conventionally in marriage.

For all its comic charm, Love's Labor's Lost presents an extraordinary exhibition of masculine insecurity and helplessness. While the veneer of male authority is brittle and precarious from the outset, female power is virtually absolute. This startling reversal of the expectation that men control women gives the play its capacity to disquiet us. By setting up such a marked inequality in their respective power, Shakespeare creates a gap between men and women which cannot be bridged. My thesis is that this fixed gap enables Shakespeare to explore dramatically...