Love's Labour's Lost and Henry Neville's Letters

Love's Labour's Lost and Henry Neville's Letters

Overview

This packet compares Love's Labour's Lost with the Neville letters using the XML witness:

• /Users/kenf/Neville Book/08_Neville_Letters_Vocabulary/source_xml/Neville_Letters_Corpus_v8.xml

The strongest current result is that Neville's letters strongly support the play's French diplomatic and rhetorical world, especially:

• Navarre
• embassy / ambassador / embassage
• conference and quick-dispatch culture
• compliment rhetoric
• the conjunction of language study with public service

The current evidence does not support several of the play's most famous comic-pedantic details as letter-based parallels.

Verified Sourced Facts

• letter_021 (1599-08-20, to Robert Cecil) contains a direct Navarre witness in a French-council context.
• letter_052 (1600-02-26, to Robert Cecil) contains the wording the recovery of Navarre.
• letter_060 (1600-04-24, to Robert Cecil) joins language and studye in a single witness:
• many helpes both for the language and any other studye he affects
• letter_064 (1600-05-26) identifies Neville as her Majesty's legier Ambassador in France and Thomas Edmondes as Secretary for the French tongue.
• letter_065 (1600-05-18, to Robert Cecil) says:
• we have had sundry conferences both private and public
• pass some compliments
• letter_115 (1598-12-22, Thomas Edmondes to Neville) says Neville's long Compliment had gained him knowledge of the affairs and reputation.
• letter_128 (1599-06-28, to Thomas Windebank) refers to your conference and good conversation.
• letter_019 (1599-08-08, to Robert Cecil) uses both compliments and embassage in real diplomatic reporting.

Ken Feinstein Twitter and Blog Information

• Earlier draft work in the Neville project sometimes ran hotter on phrase-level survivals in Love's Labour's Lost than the current letter pass justifies.
• The current research folder narrows the case to the strongest documentary zone:
• French court and embassy procedure
• not universal lexical derivation from the letters

Quoted Source Text

letter_052

the King was very pleasant upon the first news, and began to talk of the recovery of Navarre and of other designs

letter_060

many helpes both for the language and any other studye he affects

letter_065

we have had sundry conferences both private and public

and:

we did only salute one another, and pass some compliments

letter_115

prepare myself to serve as her ambassador in France

and:

your long Compliment ... hath gained you both knowledge of the affairs and reputation

Citations

• /Users/kenf/Neville Book/08_Neville_Letters_Vocabulary/source_xml/Neville_Letters_Corpus_v8.xml
• /Users/kenf/folger_shakespeare/chunked/loves-labors-lost/act-01_scene-01.txt
• /Users/kenf/folger_shakespeare/chunked/loves-labors-lost/act-02_scene-01.txt
• /Users/kenf/folger_shakespeare/chunked/loves-labors-lost/act-03_scene-01.txt
• /Users/kenf/folger_shakespeare/chunked/loves-labors-lost/act-05_scene-01.txt
• /Users/kenf/folger_shakespeare/chunked/loves-labors-lost/act-05_scene-02.txt
• /Users/kenf/Neville Book/18_Other_Plays_Analysis/Loves_Labours_Lost_Neville_Letters/SCENE_BY_SCENE_COMPARISON.md
• /Users/kenf/Neville Book/18_Other_Plays_Analysis/Loves_Labours_Lost_Neville_Letters/LETTER_WITNESSES.md

Notes on Access

• Best-supported scenes:
• Act 2, Scene 1
• Act 5, Scene 2
• Act 1, Scene 1
• The current evidence base is strongest for diplomatic-world comparison and weaker for Holofernes/Armado comic diction.
• Negative findings matter here:
• no strong current letter support for honorificabilitudinitatibus
• no strong current letter support for posterior of this day
• no strong current letter support for remuneration