ACT I

THE VOW AND ITS FIRST ANTAGONISTS

The theme of the Comedy—­the exclusion of love for the sake of winning fame for learning, is made clear by the first speaker.  The opposition Love will make to this is next expressed through another speaker, and then embodied in a practical example.  Bring out the argument, in full, on both sides, as expressed by the King and his lords, on the one side, and by one lord who is less subservient on the other side.  What does Berowne object to in the King’s idea about study and fame?  He says, practically, that fame is a mere expression of opinion, and that as anybody can give anyone the name of being learned or the name of being anything, fame may be given by those who have very little notion of any real knowledge.  Superficial knowledge is knowledge of names but real knowledge is that which names mean.  In a word, we but dull our minds and blind our eyes in poring over the outsides of things, unless we study to understand life and act a beneficent part in it.

As children we are rightly put to task work in order to get the means to go on independently using life and all the products of life including books, in order to minister toward independent thought and life.  But to start in with rules and restrictions when we are older and life itself is opening before us, is like climbing over a house to unlock the gate before it.  Their artificial arrangements are not fitted to meet actual experience.  Actual experience is bound to laugh at their exclusion of life.  How does the message brought by Costard and Clowne bear on the argument?  The fooling seems to be the dominant interest in Scene ii.  Is it, nevertheless, only the vehicle by which the theme is developed?  Show how also not alone by the confession Armado makes but also by the words in which he expressed it, the theme of the conflict of Love against the vow foreswearing it is made clear.  Notice, too, that the symptom, so to speak, of the labour of Love or Cupid as opposed to the Herculean labor of “warre against your owne affections” is at once made evident in Armando.  This symptom is the desire to write a Sonnet.  In what way, then, does it appear from the Story of Act I, that witness will be borne to the success of love’s labor over the vow of the Achademe?

Does the sprightliness of the second scene obscure the scheme of the play advantageously or disadvantageously?

ACT II

THE EMBASSY versus THE VOW

How is it made apparent that the effect of the Embassy of France to Navarre will be on the side of Love against the Vow?  The ladies’ remarks upon the students of the Achademe throw light upon themselves and the drift of the story as well as upon their subjects.  Show what may be gathered from their speeches?  What does the Princess gather from them?