The mood of the play is largely lighthearted and cheerful. Love’s Labor’s Lost is set in a peaceful court in a small kingdom without any apparent strife or struggle. Unlike other Shakespearean court settings, there are no secret plots, murders, or struggles for power. The primary interests of the monarch in this play are study, self-development, and love.
The conflict in Love’s Labor’s Lost is largely internal. The play follows four close friends (Ferdinand, Dumaine, Longaville, and Berowne) as they come to terms with the realities of love. As such, the longest speeches in the play are devoted to discussions of beauty and love (e.g. Berowne’s speech in Act 4, the many love letters throughout the play). The mood is buoyed further by delicate imagery of flowers, as in Boyet’s comparison of the French women to roses, and jewels, like those the men give the French women as gifts.
The play’s comic elements also keep the mood light. The comic antics of other members of the Court of Navarre alternate with the four love stories throughout the play. Holofernes and Nathaniel parody themselves as over-educated pedants, easily outsmarted by their mischievous pageboy Mote. Armado, a parody of a nobleman, competes with the slow-witted Costard for the same woman.
In addition, the climax of the plot is the noblemen's plan to disguise themselves and meet the French women, a whimsical scene that extends for most of the last act. The comedy in the play relies on dramatic irony and affects the play’s mood by directly implicating the audience.
The only dissonant note is the death of the princess’s father, which signals a shift in the play’s mood to one that is far more serious. This death forces the characters to move from the joy of courtship to serious considerations about commitment and marriage, ending the whole play on a more solemn note.
