Love's Labour's Lost is one of
William Shakespeare's early comedies, believed to have been written in the mid-1590s for a performance at the
Inns of Court before
Queen Elizabeth I. It follows the King of
Navarre and his three companions as they attempt to forswear the company of women for three years of study and fasting, and their subsequent infatuation with the Princess of
Aquitaine and her ladies. In an untraditional ending for a comedy, the play closes with the death of the Princess's father, and all weddings are delayed for a year. The play draws on themes of masculine love and desire, reckoning and rationalization, and reality versus fantasy.