About the work
Early comedy by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1594/95; a court performance before Queen Elizabeth I at Christmas 1597 is documented. The play was first printed as a quarto in 1598.
Plot
King Ferdinand of Navarre and three companions vow to devote themselves to study for three years and forswear the company of women. Their resolve quickly crumbles with the arrival of the Princess of France and her three ladies, and the men court them, at times in disguise. When the princess learns of her father's death, the weddings are, unusually for a comedy, postponed by a year rather than celebrated at once.
Cultural significance
The play was popular with Elizabethan audiences drawn to its literary wit, but fell into neglect for roughly two centuries after the Restoration and was only rehabilitated in critical esteem from the late nineteenth century onward. It is valued today for its virtuosic wordplay, seen as one of the most linguistically demanding of Shakespeare's early works.