Type of Work

.......The Two Gentlemen of Verona is a stage play in the form of a comedy. It centers on the friendship of two young men and the women they love. It is an early attempt by Shakespeare at high comedy, a type of comedy focusing on the life of upper classes. The dialogue in high comedy contains an abundance of witty dialogue. 

Key Dates

Date Written: Probably 1592 and 1593.
Date Published: 1623 in the First Folio, the first authorized collection of Shakespeare's plays.

Sources

.......Shakespeare based The Two Gentlemen of Verona on Bartholomew Young’s translation of Los Siete Libros de la Diana (The Seven Books of the Diana), by Jorge de Montemayor (1520-1561) and possibly on tales in Renaissance literature. 

Settings
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.......The action takes place in Italy, including Verona, Milan, and a forest near Mantua. Milan and Mantua are in Lombardy, a province in north-central Italy. Verona is in Veneto, a province in northeastern Italy. 

Characters
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Protagonist: Valentine
Antagonist: Adversity in the Form of Characters and Circumstances
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Valentine, Proteus:Two young gentlemen of Verona who are best friends. But love for the same woman comes between them.
Silvia: Beloved of Valentine. She rebuffs the advances of Proteus.
Julia: Young woman who loves Proteus. She remains loyal to him even though he becomes infatuated with Silvia.
Duke of Milan:Father of Silvia. He attempts to force her to marry the vain Thurio.
Antonio: Father of Proteus.
Thurio: A foolish rival of Valentine.
Eglamour: Agent for Silvia in her escape.
Host: Host of the establishment where Julia lodges after she goes to Milan. 
Outlaws: Three men who capture Valentine in a forest outside Milan.
Speed: Clownish servant of Valentine.
Launce: Clownish servant of Proteus.
Crab: Launce's dog.
Panthino: Servant of Antonio.
Lucetta: Waiting-woman of Julia.
Minor Characters:Servants, musicians.

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Plot Summary
By Michael J. Cummings...© 2003
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.......Valentine and Proteus, two young gentlemen of Verona, have always been the best of friends. But Valentine says it is time to bid his pal farewell and, with a servant named Speed, goes off to seek his place in the world at the court of the Duke of Milan. Proteus, however, is quite satisfied  to remain in Verona, for he loves the city’s fairest lady, Julia. When Julia receives a love letter from Proteus, she pretends to her maid that it means nothing to her. Secretly, though, she loves Proteus as much as he loves her, and she sends a letter of her own back to him. While Proteus reads it, his father, Antonio, informs his son that he, too, must go to Milan to educate and improve himself. Antonio, believing that the letter Proteus holds is from Valentine, is unaware of his son’s love for Julia. 
.......In Milan, meanwhile, Valentine has also found love. The object of his affection is the duke’s daughter, the beautiful Silvia. Although her father wishes her to marry an asinine fellow named Thurio, Silvia turns her attentions toward Valentine, asking him to act as a kind of secretary. Valentine’s servant Speed teases him about his crush on Silvia, saying he mopes around as if he had a disease. Speed provides additional advice:

SPEED   If you love her, you cannot see her.
VALENTINE   Why?
SPEED   Because love is blind. O, that you had mine eyes; or your own eyes had the lights they were wont to have when you chid at¹ Sir Proteus for going ungartered!²
VALENTINE   What should I see then?
SPEED   Your own present folly and her passing deformity: for he [Proteus], being in love, could not see to garter his hose³, and you, being in love, cannot see to put on your hose. (2.1.44-48)

Thyself hast lov’d; and I have heard thee say 
No grief did ever come so near thy heart 
As when thy lady and thy true love died,
Upon whose grave thou vow’dst pure chastity.⁴ (4.3.23-26) 

Sir Valentine, I care not for her, I; 
I hold him but a fool that will endanger 
His body for a girl that loves him not: 
I claim her not, and therefore she is thine. (5 4.143-146) 

Now, by the honour of my ancestry, 
I do applaud thy spirit, Valentine, 
And think thee worthy of an empress’ love: 
Know then, I here forget all former griefs,⁵
Cancel all grudge, repeal thee home again, 
Plead a new state in⁶ thy unrivall’d merit, 
To which I thus subscribe: Sir Valentine, 
Thou art a gentleman and well deriv’d; 
Take thou thy Silvia, for thou hast deserv’d her. (5.4.150-158)

Thurio, give back, or else embrace thy death; 
Come not within the measure of my wrath; 
Do not name Silvia thine . . . . (5.4.137-139) 

I do applaud thy spirit, Valentine, 
And think thee worthy of an empress’ love: 
Know then, I here forget all former griefs,⁷
Cancel all grudge, repeal thee home again. (5.4.151-154).

Characterization Blunder?
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.......Shakespeare appears to commit a serious characterization blunder in the fourth scene of Act 5, when Valentine confronts Proteus after the latter attempts to force himself on Silvia. Valentine first declares that he will never again trust Proteus, a declaration that is entirely understandable. A moment later, he forgives Proteus his transgressions after Proteus expresses remorse. That change of heart, too, is understandable. After all, Proteus had been his best friend. Moreover, Proteus's contrition seems genuine, and it may signal a rejection of his fickle ways and the beginning of his maturation. 
.......What is not understandable, however, is that Valentine—in reconciling with Proteus—actually offers him Silvia as a goodwill token. Here is the dialogue that takes place:
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..............PROTEUS   My shame and guilt confounds me.
..............Forgive me, Valentine: if hearty sorrow
..............Be a sufficient ransom⁸ for offence,
..............I tender⁹ 't here; I do as truly suffer
..............As e'er I did commit.
..............VALENTINE   Then I am paid;
..............And once again I do receive thee honest.
..............Who by repentance is not satisfied
..............Is nor of heaven nor earth, for these are pleased.
..............By penitence the Eternal's wrath's appeased:
..............And, that my love may appear plain and free,
..............All that was mine in Silvia I give thee. (5. 4. 80-91)
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Here, Shakespeare seems to go too far in asking his audience to believe this surprising reversal. Would Valentine—deeply in love with Silvia and, just moments before, ready to cancel his friendship with Proteus—really surrender her to Proteus as a kind of peace offering? Common sense says no. However, at least one Shakespeare scholar says Valentine's gesture is not at all surprising: "It was a common belief in Shakespeare's time that the love of a man for his friend, especially his 'sworn brother,' was stronger and nobler than the love of man for woman" (Harrison, G.B., ed. Shakespeare: The Complete Works. New York: Harcourt, 1952, Page 366). Other scholars maintain that the last line of the passage—All that was mine in Silvia I give thee—actually means this: I love you as a friend in the same way that I love Sylvia as my future wife.
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JULIA...And wouldst thou have me cast my love on him?
LUCETTA...Ay, if you thought your love not cast away.
JULIA...Why he, of all the rest, hath never moved me.
LUCETTA Yet he, of all the rest, I think, best loves ye.
JULIA...His little speaking shows his love but small.
LUCETTA...Fire that's closest kept burns most of all.
JULIA...They do not love that do not show their love.
LUCETTA...O, they love least that let men know their love. (1. 2. 27-34)

.......In the dialogue of The Two Gentlemen of Verona and other Shakespeare plays, characters sometimes speak wise or witty sayings couched in memorable figurative language. Although these sayings are brief, they often express a profound universal truth or make a thought-provoking observation. Such sayings are called epigrams or aphorisms. Because many of Shakespeare’s epigrams are so memorable, writers and speakers use them again and again. 
.......Many of Shakespeare's epigrams have become part of our everyday language; often we use them without realizing that it was Shakespeare who coined them. Examples of phrases Shakespeare originated in his plays include “all’s well that ends well,” “[every] dog will have its day,” “give the devil his due,” “green-eyed monster,” “my own flesh and blood,” “neither rhyme nor reason,” “one fell swoop,” “primrose path,” “spotless reputation,” and “too much of a good thing.”
.......Among some of the more memorable sayings in The Two Gentlemen of Verona are the following:

Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits. (1.1.4)
Valentine, eager to leave home and see the world, uses a play on words (home-keeping, homely) and alliteration (home, have, and homely) to express a truth: confining oneself to the same environment day in and day out dulls the wits (intelligence, perception, ability to think).

O! they love least that let men know their love. (1.2.34)
Paradox and alliteration help make this line memorable. The paradox occurs when Lucetta tells Julia that the women who love least are the women who express their love. Alliteration occurs in love, least, let, and love.

His years but young, but his experience old; 
His head unmellow’d, but his judgment ripe. (2.4.60-61)
Valentine praises Proteus to the Duke of Milan, using antithesis and paradox to make his point.

How use doth breed a habit in a man. (5.4.3)
Valentine observes that repeated use of—or exposure to—anything can result in a habit. He speaks these words when he becomes used to living in the peace and solitude of the forest. He realizes, however, that he needs to break his “habit” and rejoin the company of people—in particular Silvia—who can fill a void within him.

Marry,¹⁰ by these special marks:¹¹ first, you have
learned, like Sir Proteus, to wreathe¹²your arms,
like a malecontent;¹³ to relish a love-song, like a 
robin-redbreast; to walk alone, like one that had
the pestilence; to sigh, like a school-boy that had
buried her grandam; to fast, like one that takes
diet; to watch like one that fears robbing; to
speak puling,¹⁴ like a beggar at Hallowmas.¹⁵ (2.1.18-28)

Notes

1.....chid at: Scolded.
2.....ungargerted: Without garters (devices that keep stockings from drooping).
3.....hose: Stockings.
4.....Upon . . . chastity: Eglamour took a vow of celibacy after his beloved died.
5.....griefs: Grievances, complaints.
6.....Plead . . . in: Have a new insight into. 
7.....griefs: Grievances, complaints.
8.....ransom: Reparation, atonement.
9.....tender: Give.
10...Marry: By the Virgin Mary.
11...marks: Signs, symptoms.
12...wreathe: Fold.
13...malecontent: Play on words (like a malcontent or like a male who is content).
14...puling: Whimpering, whining.
15...Hallowmas: All Saints' Day (November 1).

Study Questions and Essay Topics

• The name Valentine comes from a Latin word, valentia, meaning worth, capacity, or value. Is this an appropriate name for the young man in love with Silvia? 
• Which character in the play do you most admire? Which character do you least admire?
• In Greek mythology, Proteus was a minor sea god who could change his shape at will. Why is Proteus an apt name for Valentine’s friend? Suggestion: Look up the noun Proteus and the adjective protean in a good dictionary. 
• After Valentine goes to the duke’s court at Milan to better himself, Antonio orders his son, Proteus, to do the same. Antonio’s servant, Panthino, had advised Antonio to send him there. Does Proteus, in fact, "better himself" at the court? Explain your answer.
• Write an essay centering on the differences between true love and infatuation in Shakespeare’s plays. 
• Is Proteus truly in love with Julia at the end of the play? 
• Which characters in the play consistently exhibit good judgment? Which characters exhibit bad judgment? 
• In an essay, explain how the presence of minor characters—such as servants and outlaws—helps to expose and develop the major characters.