The Two Gentlemen of Verona
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The Two Gentlemen of Verona is a comedy by William Shakespeare from early in his career. The highlight of the play is considered by many to be the comic servingman Launce and his dog Crab.
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[edit] Date, Performance, Publication
The date of composition is uncertain, although it is commonly believed to have been one of Shakespeare's earliest works. The play is believed to have been written in the early 1590s, although the first evidence of its existence is in Francis Meres's list of plays, published in 1598. It was not printed until 1623 when it appeared in the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays.
There is no record of a performance in Shakespeare's era, down to the closing of the theatres in 1642. The earliest known performance occurred at Drury Lane in 1762, with augmented parts for Launce and his dog. The straight Shakespearean text was performed at Covent Garden in 1784; Frederic Reynolds staged an operatic version in 1821.
The play has been produced sporadically, but with little success in the English-speaking world. It has proved more popular in Europe.[1]
[edit] Synopsis
The two gentlemen are Valentine and Proteus. In the beginning of the play, Valentine is getting ready to leave Verona to visit Milan to gain life experience. He begs his best friend, Proteus, to come with him, but Proteus is in love with a girl named Julia. At first Valentine chides Proteus for concentrating more on matters of love than matters of the mind, but after realizing that Proteus is really in love with Julia, he goes on alone.
Meanwhile, Julia is discussing Proteus with her maid, Lucetta. Lucetta reveals to Julia that she finds Proteus very fine - "Of many good, I think him best" - and tells Julia that she thinks Proteus is fond of her. Julia, embarassed to admit she likes him, continues fishing until Lucetta brings out a letter. She will not say who gave it to her, but teases Julia that Valentine's friend, Speed, gave it to her. She thinks it was sent from Proteus. Julia then reveals that she does love Proteus.
As fate would design it, Proteus' father agrees with Valentine and Panthino, another of Proteus's friends, and soon sends Proteus to Milan. In a tearful goodbye with his beloved, Julia, Proteus swears eternal love. The two exchange rings and vows and Proteus promises to return as soon as he can.
Unfortunately, as soon as he arrives in Milan, trouble strikes. Proteus finds Valentine in love with Silvia, the daughter of the Duke. Despite his past love for Julia, Proteus also falls for Silvia and does everything he can to clear his own path to her. He even betrays Valentine to the Duke, telling Silvia's father that his daughter and Valentine plan to elope. The Duke, who wishes Silvia to marry Thurio, then catches and banishes Valentine.
While wandering outside of Milan, Valentine runs afoul of a band of outlaws. They tell him that they, too, were once gentlemen and were banished. Valentine lies to them, saying he was banished because he killed a man in a fair fight, and the outlaws decide to make him their king. Valentine is confused at first, but when they tell him that he must become their king or die, the decision becomes much clearer.
While Proteus is figuring out how to win Silvia over, back in Verona, Julia decides to join her lover and travels to Milan dressed as a boy. She convinces Lucetta to dress her in boys clothes and help her fix her hair so she will not be harmed on the journey. Ironically, she insists that Proteus could love her and only her and compliments his fidelity.
Once in Milan, she discovers Proteus' betrayal and becomes his page - a youth named Sebastian - until she can figure out what to do. At first, she expects to hate Silvia because she is the object of Proteus' newfound affections. But when sent on an errand from Proteus to deliver to Silvia a letter and the same ring that Julia herself gave to him at their parting, Silvia scorns Proteus' affections. Julia realizes that Silvia does not return any of Proteus' love and is disgusted that he would forget about Julia for her. Instead, Silvia mourns for the loss of Valentine (Proteus has told her that Valentine is rumored dead). Therefore, Julia is confused and cannot decide what to do or how to treat Silvia - and likewise the portrait that Silvia has given her to bring to Proteus. She wonders what Proteus likes about Silvia and what she can do about it and eventually decides to be nice because Silvia felt pity for Julia's cause.
The play concludes in a tense confrontation in a forest, where Proteus attempts to rape Silvia. Valentine saves her, but then 'gives' her to Proteus in the name of friendship. Overwhelmed, Julia faints, revealing her identity in the process. Proteus suddenly remembers his love for Julia and returns to her. Valentine is able to marry Silvia and he and all the outlaws return to Milan. In the comic subplot, even Launce finds romance, whereupon he devises a comic resume of the attributes of a lower-class girl "whose faults exceed her hairs."
[edit] Source
The ultimate source for the play is the story of Felix and Felismena in Diana Enamorada, a collection of stories by the Portuguese writer Jorge de Montemayor. Shakespeare could have read this in translation, but a play (now lost) based on the story is known to have been performed by the Queen's Men in 1585, and so Two Gents may simply be an adaptation of that play.
[edit] Themes
A major theme of the play is the contest between friendship and love: that is, the question of whether the relationship between two male friends is more important than that between lovers. This is a common theme in Renaissance literature, since some aspects of the culture of the time celebrated friendship as the more important relationship (because it is pure and unconcerned with sexual attraction). This partly helps explain the bizarre sequence in which Valentine 'gives' Silvia to Proteus out of friendship, without even asking her.
[edit] Connections with Shakespeare's other work
- Valentine's attempt at rescuing Silvia from her controlling father, and his subsequent banishment, is distantly reminiscent of what happens to Romeo in Romeo and Juliet. The setting of Verona is also that of Romeo and Juliet.
- Shakespeare returned to the subject of close friends fighting over a woman at the very end of his career, in The Two Noble Kinsmen.
- Valentine's and Silvia's plan to elope in the night and their interactions with Proteus and Julia in the forest, are reminiscent of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
- This could very well be the first play where Shakespeare utilized the plot device of having a female disguise herself as a male, later used in such plays as As You Like It and Twelfth Night.
- Launce is noted to have many similarities with the character Launcelot Gobbo, from The Merchant of Venice. Not only are their names similar but also their manners of speech, their occupations, and their similar dramatic functions in their respective plays. They were almost certainly played by the same actor, William Kempe.
[edit] Two Gents in popular culture
- Galt MacDermot, John Guare and Mel Shapiro adapted the show into a musical that opened on December 1, 1971 and closed May 20, 1973[citation needed]
- Stuart Draper adapted the play for a gay version called Two Gentlemen of Verona which played at the Greenwich Playhouse in New York City in 2004.
- In the movie, Shakespeare in Love, attention is paid to a succession performance of the play for Queen Elizabeth I.
- David Mamet, in an interview with Leonard Lopate on WNYC, claimed that his favorite film of 2006, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, was based on Shakespeare's play, "Two Gentlemen of Verona." He cited Sacha Baron Cohen and Cohen's background in classics as proof.
[edit] Note
- ^ F. E. Halliday, A Shakespeare Companion 1564-1964, Baltimore, Penguin, 1964; p.506.
[edit] External links
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona - plain text from Project Gutenberg
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona - HTML version of this title.
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona musical - The script to the MacDermot-Guare-Shapiro musical adaptation.
