Sandra Mayfield, Ph.D.
English Department, University of Central Oklahoma
smayfield@ucok.edu

Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona, written during the years 1592-94, was perhaps the third play written by Shakespeare. Coming after The Comedy of Errors, perhaps his first, a farce set in the Greek city of Ephesus, and Love’s Labours’ Lost, a set of discourses among highly educated men in a secluded setting about love (not engaged in the pursuit of love), Two Gentlemen is the first of a favorite genre of Shakespeare, the romantic comedy.

Opening in the city of Verona, a popular locale for romantic comedies, the main characters follow the meanderings of the four lovers in the play, first to Milan, and then to a forest near Mantua. As with The Comedy of Errors, which was imitative of plays of the Roman writers Plautus and Terence, Two Gentlemen is highly imitative of Italian romantic comedy. Shakespeare’s source was probably an Italian pastoral romance, Diana Enamorada, written by the Portuguese writer Jorge de Montemayor. If he was indebted to this source, however, he may have read it in French, because it was not translated into English until 1598.

The conventions of the play, however, are definitely Italian: young lovers who fall in love “by the book,” a father who forbids the daughter to marry the man of her choice, dangerous journeys, the fitful episodes of lovers who are crossed in love, the use of disguises to facilitate the plot, and an eventual happy resolution when rightful lovers may possess the love-objects of their passion. Most of the characters conform to stereotypes: Proteus, the perfidious lover; Valentine, the faithful lover; the Duke of Milan, the obstinate father; Thurio, the pantaloon; and Speed and Launce, the clownish servants.

The play is a satire on the conventions of Petrarchan love, in which a lover may be so transformed by passion that he behaves outlandishly, becomes self-absorbed, and may become physically ill. Valentine, whose name means “token of true love,” scoffs at Proteus’ love-idolatry of Julia as the play opens. He calls Proteus a “votary to fond desire” and says that he is “over boots” in love. Proteus confesses as much when he says, “Thou, Juliet, thou has metamorphis’d me.” But he insists to Valentine, “Tis love you cavil at; I am not Love.”

Valentine leaves Verona almost as soon as the play opens to improve his education by traveling to Milan, the seat of government and culture. Immediately, he falls in love with Silvia, the Duke’s daughter, and his servant Speed observes the marks of love upon him before he himself can recognize them: “You have learned, like Sir Proteus, to wreathe your arm, like a malcontent. . . to walk alone like one who had the pestilence. . . .” Speed tells him that the object of his love, Silvia, has become “deformed” through the perspective of the eyes of love.

Proteus, whose name refers to the god who could transform himself into innumerable shapes, follows Valentine to Milan at the urging of his father to pursue his own education. Upon hearing of Valentine’s infatuation with Silvia, Proteus himself becomes intrigued with her and falls out of love with Julia. Valentine, not suspecting Proteus’ sudden change of affection, confides to him a secret plan whereby he and Silvia plan to escape the clutches of her father who has forbidden their marriage. Proteus assumes the position of advisor to Silvia’s father and tells him of the secret plan, and he assumes the position of love-counselor to Thurio, the wealthy older gentleman whom the Duke wishes to wed his daughter, whom Proteus offers to woo in Thurio’s stead. Thereby, he plans to have Valentine out of the way (because the Duke will banish him), and he will woo Silvia for himself.

The Petrarchan convention of falling in love with a beautiful woman who is idealized (and who may evoke love with a single look, as is the case with Proteus and Silvia) is, of course, another formal convention which the play satirizes. In this convention, the woman’s customary reaction is a rebuff, which only incites the lover more to plan devious ways in which to obtain the object of his love. The attainment of the love-object is seen as a semi-military conquest, in which the pursuer does battle to win her heart, usually by the presentation of love-tokens or rings. The pursuer may also write poetry to her (in this play in the form of eloquent letters). The obstacles to such a conquest may be almost insuperable, as in the case of a father’s objections or disinheritance or disownment of the daughter. Other obstacles may include removing another pursuer, as in this play.

Shakespeare multiplies the ironies implicit in the Petrarchan conventions in this play. At the opening of the play, Proteus really does love Julia, and when he is faced with her presence and her confession of love to him at the end, he is confirmed in that love. Julia, at the beginning, pretends to rebuff Proteus by tearing up the letter he has written to her, but in this she is only deceiving herself; she really does love Proteus and regrets her action. Valentine and Silvia, although playing the parts of Petrarchan lovers, really do love each other as well.

Because Julia decides to follow her heart, she follows Proteus to Milan, dressed as a man for protection. There, she discovers that he has transferred his affections to Silvia. Distressed, she offers herself as Sebastian to be an intermediary between him and Silvia, planning all the while to confuse his message to Silvia. Valentine is banished by Silvia’s father, and he finds a band of outlaws in a forest near Mantua and becomes, unwittingly, their leader. At his banishment, he discovers that he is not just playing a part, that, in fact, Silvia is dearer to him than his own life: “She is my essence, and I leave to be, /If I be not by her fair influence/ Foster’d, illumin’d, cherish’d, kept alive.”

When Silvia enlists the aid of Sir Eglamore, a steadfast friend, to accompany her to the forest to find Valentine, they inevitably converge with Julia/Sebastian, the band of outlaws, Valentine, and a latecomer, Proteus. Valentine discovers the treachery of his friend and berates him as a traitor: “O time most accurst, /’Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst.”

When Proteus repents his actions, Valentine, in the strangest action in the play, relinquishes his love for Silvia to Proteus. It remains for Julia, who takes off her disguise, to set matters right and claim Proteus’ love. His admission, “Were man/ But constant, he were perfect,” prepares the way for a happy resolution for the four lovers.

Thus, the formality of Petrarchan courtship, “loving by the book,” is transcended in the play by more authentic protestations of love and commitment. The characters themselves transcend conventional roles. Proteus may be changeable, but, like Romeo, a more perfected version of his character, he has the openness and flexibility of a sensitive and imaginative spirit. Valentine, the steadfast lover, has a kind of obtuseness that prevents his being aware of treachery, a trait that makes him not wholly admirable. Julia, the reluctant lover, becomes an aggressor in the pursuit of love. And Silvia, far from being an uncomplicated, submissive lover, maintains a hearty sense of reality even as pursues with intensity her true love.

In this play, Shakespeare uses the device of two geographic locales (city and country) to designate states of mind. The forest near Mantua resembles the more elaborate pastoral settings in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, and The Winter’s Tale, where disguises can be removed, conventions forgotten, and true love can be actualized.

Shakespeare hints in this play that the power of passionate love is stronger than any force obstructing it, that, indeed, it is so powerful that it is stronger than death. But the full realization of the effectuality of this love would be expressed in its most vivid form in a tragedy, Romeo and Juliet.