The "Love-feat" at the center of Love's Labor's Lost

An instance of editorial overreach

And now for something completely different! A short piece on a crux in Love’s Labor’s Lost, another favorite play of mine, one on which I wrote a long chapter in my doctoral thesis.

Are you like me? Do you love cruxes? Cruxes are particular points of difficulty in the text, where there might be a spelling mistake or a word missing or a word or phrase that doesn’t seem to make sense. In such instances, editors have to make decisions about what to do to try to restore the intended meaning, as best they’re able to discern it. In principle, there’s nothing wrong with this. It’s an unavoidable part of dealing with a 400-year old text.

That said, there are instances where editors clearly go too far, and in this short essay I want to look at an instance of editorial overreach, of a modern-day textual intervention that in my view is entirely detrimental.

Here’s the scene. It’s the final act. The Princess’ attendant, Boyet, announces that the King and his men are on their way to woo the women. As he does so, he employs a compound, “love-feat,” which editors commonly change to “love-suit.” I wish to question the need for this change. 

“Their purpose,” announces Boyet,

is to parley, court and dance, 
And every one his love-feat will advance 
Unto his several mistress (5.2.122–4).

In most recent critical editions of the play, including the Oxford, Cambridge and Arden, editors alter love-feat to “love-suit,” considering love-feat to be an unlikely construction.

Here’s the Arden:

In the body of the text, you can see the compound “love-suit.” In the footnote, the editor explains, 

Love-feat, meaning an act of love, is strained and implausible.

Strained and implausible? A compound so obscure it simply demands editorial intervention?

Actually, love-feat makes a good deal of sense. 

First, the pun on “feet” accords with the fact that the men are going to “advance.”

The same pun is also appropriate in the context of dancing, feet evidently being what you dance with.

Further, the men’s endeavor constitutes a feat in the sense of “an exceptional or noteworthy act or achievement; a deed of valour; a noble exploit” (Oxford English Dictionary 2). Throughout the play, the men liken themselves to conquering heroes undertaking deeds of valor and glory. Therefore, their venture is indeed a “love-feat” in the sense of an amorous endeavor requiring bravery and skill. 

The Princess evidently hears this sense of “feat.” Hearing that each man “his love-feat will advance,” she responds, 

And will they so? 
The gallants shall be tasked” (5.2.126).

In sarcastically calling the men “gallants,” the Princess responds to the implication of feat, a gallant being, in effect, a person who performs brave or heroic feats (OED 5).

Where else do we hear about heroic love-feats? In the very title! Love’s Labor’s Lost. As I’ll explain in another piece, the title refers to unsuccessful amatory endeavors in the name of Love, or Cupid.

Therefore, the editorial intervention here isn’t just unnecessary, but obscures a compound that captures the very essence of the action. Men who are foiled in great feats of love—this is what the play is centrally about!

Isn’t this a frustrating thought—to think how the text has been altered? When reading through a play, don’t you assume you’re encountering the author’s words as he or she intended them? Wouldn’t you assume editors are doing all they can to protect the original meaning, that they’re erring on the side of preservation and making changes only when they absolutely must?

Unfortunately, some editors are a little too good at their jobs, readily going and substituting their thoughts and words for Shakespeare’s.