Four earnest young men vow to forswear women for three years, in order to improve their minds (the men’s minds, that is). Four young women meet them. Four young men fall in love with four young women, who tease them for a while before agreeing to marry them. The comic relief is in the form of a pedant where the joke is his pedantry and a Spaniard where the joke is his flowery language (even more than the rest of them).
Shakespeare’s plots are never his best point. This may be Shakespeare’s only play where the plot, like a courtly dance, is carefully patterned to make it a pleasing device in is own right. Which is just as well. The introduction to LLL suggests that it was meant as a kind of satire on flowery language, and meant to suggest that language is no substitute for more earth-bound interests (especially the love of men and women).
My question is, why his language didn’t work its magic here? Is it just me, and if not was that deliberate in order to demonstrate his argument?
