Shakespeare, Elizabeth and Ivan

Shakespeare's comedy Love's Labour's Lost has perplexed scholars and theatergoers for over 400 years due to its linguistic complexity, obscure topical allusions and decidedly non-comedic ending. According to traditional interpretations, it is Shakespeare's "French" play, based on events and characters from the French Wars of Religion.
This work argues that the play's French surface conceals a Russian core. It outlines an interpretation of Love's Labour's Lost rooted in diplomatic and trade relations between Russia and Elizabethan England during the dramatic decades following England's discovery of a northern trade route to Muscovy in 1553. Drawing on original research of 16th-century sources in English, Latin and French, the text also surveys Russian sources previously unavailable in translation. This analysis provides new explanations for some of the play's previously most enigmatic elements, such as its unconventional ending, the significance of its secondary characters, linguistic anomalies and the Masque of the Muscovites itself.

Table of Contents

Timeline: Historical Events in England, Russia and Europe, 1530-1649
Preface
Introduction
Part I-Love's Labors: Mary, Elizabeth and Ivan, 1553-1584
¿1.¿Seasick Coming from Muscovy
¿2.¿What Buys Your Company?
¿3.¿The Ambassadors of Love
¿4.¿The Armipotent Mars
¿5.¿The Empress of Muscovy
¿6.¿The Soldier, the Clown and the Wench
Part II-Labors Lost: Elizabeth and Godunov, 1584-1598
¿7.¿The Curate, the Pedant and the Boy
¿8.¿A Feast of Languages
¿9.¿Heirs of All Eternity
10.¿The Pageant of the Nine Worthies
Epilogue: You This Way, We That Way
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index