SOURCE: “Giving and Receiving: Love's Labour's Lost and the Politics of Exchange,” in English Literary Renaissance, Vol. 23, No. 2, Spring, 1993, pp. 287-313.

In the following essay, Burnett approaches the topicality of Love's Labour's Lost by exploring the play in terms of its critical discourse on Elizabethan cultural practices, especially that of gift exchange.

In 1559, basking in the glory of her new queenly status, Elizabeth I processed through London to Westminster, the traditional site of coronation, and on route the sovereign availed herself of every opportunity to express gratitude for the smoothness with which her election had been effected. Elizabeth “did declare herselfe no lesse thankefullye to receive her people's good wille, than they lovingly offred it unto her.”¹ Similar delineations of reciprocal protestations of indebtedness recur in the official account of the event. After a child had delivered a welcoming oration, Elizabeth “thanked most hartely both the citie for...