SOURCE: Parker, Patricia. “Preposterous Reversals: Love's Labour's Lost.” Modern Language Quarterly 54, no. 4 (December 1993): 435-82.

In the following essay, Parker highlights the various class and gender relationships in Love's Labour's Lost.

At the beginning of Love's Labor's Lost, after the men of Navarre have sworn their “three years' fast … not to see a woman in that term” (1.1.24, 37), the Constable enters with a letter from the “magnificent Armado” accusing Costard of a crime that this so-called “shallow vassal” (1.1.253) proceeds to explain:

COST.

The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta: the manner of it is, I was taken with the manner. 

BER.

In what manner? 

COST.

In manner and form following, sir, all those three: I was seen with her in the manor-house, sitting with her upon the form, and taken following her into the park, which put together, is in manner and form following. Now, sir, for the...