Entertaining and Analalyzing an Audience

I am loving this play. It is so well written. After reading J.J.'s post I wanted to point out a few more things I thought were valuable to the conversation.
As a recap, J.J. talked about how Shakespeare uses a play on words to captivate the audience and mostly in humor. In my post from a week ago, I also touched on Shakespeare's talent to entertain while still developing the plot. Here he still continues to do so through poetry, a play on words and one of my personal favorite, similes.

Biron:

What, I! I love! I sue! I seek a wife!
A woman, that is like a German clock,
Still a-repairing, ever out of frame,
And never going aright, being a watch,
But being watch'd that it may still go right!

Notice that by slipping in this "German clock," Shakespeare is also talking about the Germans, not just the woman Biron is in love with. He then gives us a little bit of background on how the English felt about German made products at the time. "Out of frame... ever repairing." He knew his audience and wrote for them.

Foreshadowing - The Power of Women

This is a fun little scene in Love's Labour's Lost (Act II Scene I). There is a lot of foreshadowing made by the Princess of France. Here is one example that I read about...
When conversing with the king (who has already broken his oath by talking with her) she says

You will the sooner, that I were away;
For you'll prove perjured if you make me stay

Definition of Perjured: involving willfully told untruths.

In other words the queen is saying, "if I stay you're going to break your oath and you'll be a liar." Shakespeare cleverly uses the Princess' confidence to foreshadow (scroll down on the link's website for more examples of foreshadowing) the rest of the play. There is a possible theme to show the power of women against the word of man. Shakespeare may be hinting at thoughts about Catholic Priests and their vows of celibacy.

Source:
http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/labours/section2.rhtml