The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Two Gentlemen of Verona is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1589 and 1593. It is considered by some to be Shakespeare's first play, and is often seen as showing his first tentative steps in laying out some of the themes and motifs with which he would later deal in more detail; for example, it is the first of his plays in which a heroine dresses as a boy. The play deals with the themes of friendship and infidelity, the conflict between friendship and love, and the foolish behaviour of people in love. The highlight of the play is considered by some to be Launce, the clownish servant of Proteus, and his dog Crab, to whom "the most scene-stealing non-speaking role in the canon" has been attributed.
Two Gentlemen is often regarded as one of Shakespeare's weakest plays. It has the smallest named cast of any play by Shakespeare.
Characters
Verona:- Valentine – a gentleman
- Proteus – Valentine's best friend
- Julia – Proteus' betrothed
- Launce – Proteus' servant
- Speed – Valentine's servant
- Antonio – Proteus' father
- Panthino – Antonio's servant
- Lucetta – Julia's servant
- Crab – Launce's dog
- The Duke – Silvia's father
- Silvia – Valentine's beloved
- Thurio – a foolish suitor to Silvia
- Sir Eglamour – a suitor to Silvia
- The Host – an innkeeper who helps Julia
- The Outlaws – banished men originally from Milan
Summary
Proteus's father, however, has been persuaded that Proteus too needs to further his gentlemanly education, and he orders his son to leave for Milan the very next day, prompting a tearful farewell with Julia, to whom Proteus swears eternal love. The couple exchange rings and vows. Proteus sets off accompanied by his own servant, Launce, and Launce's dog, Crab.
In Milan, Valentine has fallen in love with the Duke's daughter, Silvia, who clearly prefers this suitor to the wealthy but foppish Thurio who her father intends she should marry. As soon as Proteus arrives, he too falls in love with Silvia. Determined to win her, and agonising only briefly about betraying both his friend and his lover, Proteus slyly tells the Duke that Valentine plans to elope with Silvia, using a corded ladder to rescue her from the tower room in which she is imprisoned each night. The Duke banishes Valentine. Wandering in the forest, Valentine runs into a band of outlaws, who elect him their leader.
File:Valentine Rescuing Sylvia from Proteus.jpg|thumb|Valentine Rescuing Sylvia from Proteus by William Holman Hunt
Back in Verona, Julia decides to join her lover in Milan and convinces her maid Lucetta to dress her in boy's clothes. On arrival in Milan, Julia discovers Proteus's love for Silvia and watches him serenade her. To learn more, she contrives to become his page boy, calling herself Sebastian. Proteus sends Julia/Sebastian to Silvia with a gift of a ring that Julia had given him before he left Verona. Silvia scorns Proteus's affections, repelled by his inconstancy to the lover he has left behind.
In despair, Silvia flees into the forest, where she is quickly taken prisoner by the outlaws. They head to their new leader, Valentine, on the way encountering Proteus and Julia/Sebastian. Proteus rescues Silvia but, secretly observed by Valentine, continues to press his unwanted suit. When Proteus tells Silvia that he intends to force himself on her, Valentine intervenes.
Proteus professes to be horrified by his own behaviour. Convinced that Proteus's repentance is genuine, Valentine forgives him and says "All that was mine in Silvia I give thee". At this point, overwhelmed, Julia swoons, revealing her true identity. Proteus suddenly recalls his love for her and vows fidelity once again.
The Duke and Thurio are brought in by the outlaws. Thurio claims Silvia as his, but Valentine warns that if he makes a move toward her, he will kill him. Terrified, Thurio renounces his claim. The Duke, disgusted by Thurio's cowardice and impressed by Valentine's actions, approves Valentine's and Silvia's love and consents to their marriage. The two couples, Valentine and Silvia, and Proteus and Julia, are happily united. The Duke pardons the outlaws and permits their return to Milan.
Date and text
Date
The exact date of composition of The Two Gentlemen of Verona is unknown, but it is generally believed to have been one of Shakespeare's earliest works. The first evidence of its existence is in a list of Shakespeare's plays in Francis Meres's Palladis Tamia, published in 1598, but it is thought to have been written in the early 1590s. Clifford Leech, for example, argues for 1592/1593; G. Blakemore Evans places the date at 1590–1593; Gary Taylor suggests 1590–1591; Kurt Schlueter posits the late 1580s; William C. Carroll suggests 1590–1592; Roger Warren tentatively suggests 1587, but acknowledges 1590/1591 as more likely.It has been argued that Two Gentlemen may have been Shakespeare's first work for the stage. This theory was first suggested by Edmond Malone in 1821, in the Third Variorum edition of Shakespeare's plays, edited by James Boswell based on Malone's notes. Malone dated the play 1591, a modification of his earlier 1595 date from the third edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare. At this time, the dominant theory was that the Henry VI trilogy had been Shakespeare's first work. More recently, the play was placed first in The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works of 1986, again in the 2nd edition of 2005, and again in the New Oxford Shakespeare edition of 2016, in The Norton Shakespeare of 1997, and again in the 2nd edition of 2008, and in The Complete Pelican Shakespeare of 2002.
A large part of the theory that this may be Shakespeare's first play is the quality of the work itself. Writing in 1968, Norman Sanders argued "all are agreed on the play's immaturity." The argument is that the play betrays a lack of practical theatrical experience on Shakespeare's part, and as such, it must have come extremely early in his career. Stanley Wells, for example, has written the "dramatic structure is comparatively unambitious, and while some of its scenes are expertly constructed, those involving more than, at the most, four characters betray an uncertainty of technique suggestive of inexperience." This uncertainty can be seen in how Shakespeare handles the distribution of dialogue in such scenes. Whenever there are more than three characters on stage, at least one of those characters tends to fall silent. For example, Speed is silent for almost all of 2.4, as are Thurio, Silvia and Julia for most of the last half of the final scene. It has also been suggested that the handling of the final scene in general, in which the faithful lover seemingly offers his beloved as a token of his forgiveness to the man who has just attempted to rape her, is a sign of Shakespeare's lack of maturity as a dramatist.
In his 2008 edition of the play for the Oxford Shakespeare, Roger Warren argues that the play is the oldest surviving piece of Shakespearean literature, suggesting a date of composition as somewhere between 1587 and 1591. He hypothesizes that the play was perhaps written before Shakespeare came to London, with an idea towards using the famous comic actor Richard Tarlton in the role of Launce. However, Tarlton died in September 1588, and Warren notes several passages in Two Gentlemen which seem to borrow from John Lyly's Midas, which wasn't written until at least late 1589. As such, Warren acknowledges that 1590/1591 is most likely the correct date of composition.
Text
The play was not printed until 1623, when it appeared in the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays.Criticism and analysis
Critical history
Perhaps the most critically discussed issue in the play is the sequence, bizarre by modern Western standards, in 5.4, in which Valentine seems to 'give' Silvia to Proteus as a sign of his friendship. For many years, the general critical consensus on this issue was that the incident revealed an inherent misogyny in the text. For example, Hilary Spurling wrote in 1970, "Valentine is so overcome that he promptly offers to hand over his beloved to the man who, not three minutes before, had meant to rape her." Modern scholarship, however, is much more divided about Valentine's actions at the end of the play, with some critics arguing that he does not offer to give Silvia to Proteus at all. The ambiguity lies in the line "All that was mine in Silvia I give thee". Some critics interpret this to mean that Valentine is indeed handing Silvia over to her would-be rapist, but another school of thought suggests that Valentine simply means "I will love you with as much love as I love Silvia," thus reconciling the dichotomy of friendship and love as depicted elsewhere in the play. This is certainly how Jeffrey Masten, for example, sees it, arguing that the play as a whole "reveals not the opposition of male friendship and Petrarchan love but rather their interdependence." As such, the final scene "stages the play's ultimate collaboration of male friendship and its incorporation of the plot we would label "heterosexual"."This is also how Roger Warren interprets the final scene. Warren cites several productions of the play as evidence for this argument, including Robin Phillips' Royal Shakespeare Company production in 1970, where Valentine kisses Silvia, makes his offer and then kisses Proteus. Another staging cited by Warren is Edward Hall's 1998 Swan Theatre production. In Hall's version of the scene, after Valentine says the controversial line, Silvia approaches him and takes him by the hand. They remain holding hands for the rest of the play, clearly suggesting that Valentine has not 'given' her away. Warren also mentions Leon Rubin's 1984 Stratford Shakespeare Festival production, David Thacker's 1991 Swan Theatre production, and the 1983 BBC Television Shakespeare adaptation as supporting the theory that Valentine is not giving Silvia away, but is simply promising to love Proteus as much as he loves Silvia. Patty S. Derrick also interprets the BBC production in this manner, arguing that "Proteus clearly perceives the offer as a noble gesture of friendship, not an actual offer, because he does not even look towards Silvia but rather falls into an embrace with Valentine".
There are other theories regarding this final scene, however. For example, in his 1990 edition of the play for the New Cambridge Shakespeare, Kurt Schlueter suggests that Valentine is indeed handing Silvia over to Proteus, but the audience is not supposed to take it literally; the incident is farcical, and should be interpreted as such. Schlueter argues that the play provides possible evidence it was written to be performed and viewed primarily by a young audience, and as such, to be staged at university theatres, as opposed to public playhouses. Such an audience would be more predisposed to accepting the farcical nature of the scene, and more likely to find humorous the absurdity of Valentine's gift. As such, in Schlueter's theory, the scene represent what it appears to represent; Valentine does give Silvia to her would-be rapist, but it is done purely for comic effect.
Another theory is provided by William C. Carroll in his 2004 edition for the Arden Shakespeare, Third Series. Carroll argues, like Schlueter, that Valentine is indeed giving Silvia to Proteus, but unlike Schlueter, Carroll detects no sense of farce. Instead, he sees the action as a perfectly logical one in terms of the notions of friendship which were prevalent at the time:
As in Schlueter, Carroll here interprets Valentine's actions as a gift to Proteus, but unlike Schlueter, and more in line with traditional criticism of the play, Carroll also argues that such a gift, as unacceptable as it is to modern eyes, is perfectly understandable when one considers the cultural and social milieu of the play itself.