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The Two Gentlemen of Verona

The precise year The Two Gentlemen of Verona was written is uncertain. However, the play is often dated around 1590-1594 on the basis of style: rhymed couplets, end-stopped verse, passages of excessive wit combat, and the like (Bevington 75). Some critics believe that one part of the play was composed in 1592 and the rest was finished in 1593 (Evans 177).

Shakespeare combines several fictional sources while creating the play. The main source is Diana, a pastoral romance in Spanish by the Portuguese Jorge de Montemayor (1520-1561). The essential plot in Diana is:

The lady, Felismena, tells her story to a group of Diana's nymphs. A noble cavalier, Don Felix fell in love with her and sent her a love letter by her maid. Felismena's account of her refusal in feigned anger to receive the letter notwithstanding her eagerness to see it, the maid's trick to get it into her hands, and her final perusal of it are very close to the action in the play. All that is new in Shakespeare is Julia's tearing of the letter, a palpable bit of stage business. A correspondence then sprang up between the lady and Don Felix, which led at last to her confession of love for him. His father, however, eager for the advancement of his son, despatched him to the Court and Felix left his lady without a word of farewell. Felismena now disguised herself as a man and followed Felix to the Court. Here the master of the house where she lodged invited her to step to her window and hear a serenade. Next day Felismena learned of her false lover's courtship of the lady Celia, and shortly after she entered his service as the page, Valerio. In this role she became, like Julia in the play, a bearer of love letters to her rival, but unlike Julia, she pleads her master's cause. Celia, however, distrusts Don Felix, since she knows he has been false to a former mistress, and she herself falls in love with his messenger. When her avowal of love is rejected by the disguise Felismena, Celia flees, and, apparently, kills herself. At this news Felix leaves the Court for parts unknown and is again followed by Felismena in a new disguise, that of a shepherdess. Later on she sees three men attacking a single knight; she kills two of them with her arrows and the knight accounts for the third. He now reveals himself as Felix, whereupon Felismena discloses her identity and reproaches him of inconstancy in love. He swoons away, but, revived by a magic elixir, is forgiven by Felismena and promptly married to her.

(Parrott 109)

Shakespeare models his play after Montemayor's Diana. Felismena corresponds to Julia, Felix to Proteus, and Celia to Silvia. But, Shakespeare adds a new role of Valentine, Proteus' friend and Silvia's lover, in his play. Some Shakespearians suppose that true friendship of the play comes from the story of Titus and Gisippus, told by Sir Thomas Elyot in The Governor (1531), John Lyly's Euphues (1578) and Endymion (1588), or Richard Edwards' Damon and Pythias (1565) (Bevington 75-6).

Bosom buddies Valentine and Proteus bid a tearful farewell on a street in Verona. Valentine is off to improve himself, venturing out to see the world, while Proteus stays home in Verona, tied by his love for Julia. After Valentine departs, his servant, Speed, enters. Proteus inquires whether or not Speed delivered a letter to Julia, to which Speed replies affirmatively. Julia, meanwhile, asks her maid, Lucetta, with which man she should fall in love, and Lucetta recommends Proteus. Lucetta admits that she has a letter for Julia from Proteus. After much bickering, Julia tears up the letter, only to regret this act an instant later.

Antonio decides to send Proteus, his son, to the Duke's court in Milan, a decision with which neither Proteus nor Julia is particularly happy. They exchange rings and promises to keep loving each other. Meanwhile, Valentine has fallen in love with the Duke's feisty daughter, Silvia. When Proteus arrives at court, he too falls in love with Silvia, and vows to do anything he can to win her away from Valentine. When Valentine confesses that he and Silvia plan to elope, Proteus notifies the Duke of their plans, gaining favor for himself and effecting Valentine's banishment from court. Back in Verona, Julia has hatched a plan to disguise herself as a man so that she can journey to Milan to be reunited with Proteus. Upon arriving at court, she witnesses Proteus and Thurio wooing Silvia.

The banished Valentine, while traveling to Mantua, is apprehended by a group of outlaws. The outlaws, all of whom are banished gentlemen as well, demand Valentine to become their king. Since they threaten to kill him if he refuses, Valentine accepts. Silvia and Julia, who is disguised as the page Sebastian, meet when Julia delivers the ring Proteus had given her to Silvia on behalf of Proteus. Julia does not reveal her identity. Silvia calls on her friend Sir Eglamour to help her escape her father's oppressive will (he wants her to marry Thurio) and to find Valentine. However, while traveling through the forest, she and Eglamour are overtaken by a band of outlaws. Eglamour runs away, leaving Silvia to fend for herself against the outlaws. By this time, the Duke, Proteus, and Thurio, with Sebastian/Julia in tow, have organized a search party for Silvia.

Proteus wrests Silvia away from the outlaws. Valentine watches the interaction unseen. Proteus demands that Silvia give him some sign of her favor for freeing her, but she refuses. He tries to rape her for her resistance, but Valentine jumps out and stops him. Proteus immediately apologizes, and Valentine offers to give him Silvia as a token of their friendship. At this moment, Sebastian faints and his true identity becomes clear. Proteus decides that he really loves Julia better than Silvia, and takes her instead. The Duke realizes that Thurio is a thug and says that Valentine is far nobler and can marry Silvia. Valentine asks for clemency for the outlaws, and suggests that his marriage to Silvia and Proteus' marriage to Julia should take place on the same day.

(from SparkNotes)

1. Friendship is an important motif in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Analyze the friendship between Valentine and Proteus. Is it true friendship? What kind of friendship is redeemed as faithful friendship?

2. The climax comes when Valentine forgives Proteus in the end. Think the testimony to the power of the concept of forgiveness that Shakespeare manipulates as a dramatic moment.

3. Forest is regarded as a place that people escape from the reality, the restraint of laws, propriety, and social hierarchy. Discuss the forest in the play. What is its function? And discuss Valentine's performance in the forest in the close of the play.

4. What is the function of a comic character in the play? Discuss Lance's soliloquy about his family before he goes to Milan with his master. Also think the relationship between Lance and his dog Crab?

5. Sexual disguise plays a critical role in the play. Julia, who cross-dresses as a page shows flexible sex-gender identity. Please analyze the cross-dressing, sexual ambivalence, and even Julia's situation in a masculine society instead of a domestic house.

6. Launce sends a wrong dog to Silvia. And Julia as Proteus page almost gives Silvia the love letter Proteus gave her before. Is there any implication why the two servants of Proteus present wrong gifts to Silvia?

7. Discuss fathers like Antonio and the Duke of Milan in the play. How do they wield power?

8. Discuss the relationship between master and servant such as Proteus and Lance, and Julia and Lucetta.

9. Think females' performance and their position in the play. Do they behave actively or passively?

Females' Powerlessness and Silence in The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Thesis Statement: Females are silenced and powerless in a masculine world. While behaving frankly in a private, domestic world, they can not help but be silenced and absolutely obedient in the public, patriarchal society although they seem to try to behave actively and boldly.

I. Introduction

A. Historical and social background of female position in Shakespeare's time

1. Gender hierarchy that men were superior to women, and the husband's patriarchal role as governor of his family and household were assumed to have been instituted by God and nature ("Life of Women" par. 1).

2. Children and wives were the property of their parents and husbands, and gave their respect to them as servants to masters ("Life in Elizabeth England" par. 8).

3. Women expected to be married, and to depend upon male relatives in their life ("Life in Elizabeth England" par. 10).

4. Unmarried females and wives were to maintain silence in the public sphere and gave unstinting obedience to father and husband ("Gender" par. 1).

5. Women were raised to be good wives, both "dame and servant" ("Housewife" par.3).

6. The concept of female inferiority predated Christianity. But Medieval and Renaissance society was shaped by the Church in ways that Westerners find hard to fathom nowadays. And the Church was shaped by Paul's misogyny ("Life of Women" par. 5).

7. Husbands of upper class girls were chosen for them by their fathers or other male relatives. Very few men and women of noble birth could choose their own partners ("Life of Women" par. 19).

8. Marriages were arranged for political reasons, to cement alliances, for riches, land, or status, and to forge bonds between two families. The idea of marrying for love was considered bizarre and foolish ("Life of Women" par. 20).

B. Feminism

1. Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex (1949) declares that ''one is not born a woman; rather, one becomes a woman" (qtd. in Barry 130). Therefore, characteristics and proper behaviors of women are not natural. Women learn to be like women in the social ideological forms.

2. Women are the Other or dominated objects in the masculine world. They are alienated from the public society and their families since they are educated to be silent and obedient. They are told to comply with men and the elders without any questions. They have no right or power to protect themselves from the ruling patriarchal repression. Therefore, women become outsiders from the society they live in, their families and themselves.

3. Women yield to male violence or a historical and ideological physical force.

4. The subordination of women originated in primitive societies in which women serve as objects of exchange between father-dominated families that alliances through marriage (Ryan 101).

5. Luce Irigaray declares that women's bodies are transferred into abstract exchange values for circulation between men (Ryan 103). In Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen f Verona, women are not only dominated objects but also products in the patriarchal society. They are regarded as men's possession that can be purchased or exchanged. Their existence manifests exchange-value of price.

6. Women is powerless in the patriarchal society. As Sandra Gilbert and Susan Guber say, they are in a state of "social castration" (qtd. in Barry 131). They can not decide on their own or control their own life.

II. Females' silence and powerlessness

A. Females' secret voice and behavior in The Two Gentlemen of Verona

1. Secret voice

a. Speech between Julia and Lucetta in Act 1 Scene 2 presents what females think their suitors. They discuss what kind of men can be a good lover and husband.

b. Julia asks Lucetta about her suitors, which is like a "catechetical ritual" (Haslem 122). Women together can express their own perceptions and identities, comment on masculine society, and gather strength and engage in reconnaissance to act in it (Haslem 124). The whole of the ritual implies that the selected man is predetermined and pre-sanctioned by women (Haslem 125). Women seem to be independent and can choose their own lovers.

c. However, such a discussion has to be happened after a prerequisite that Julia is wooed. In other words, she is passively waiting for suitors, who choose to court her.

2. Females' acts

a. Julia's disguise as a page to follow after Proteus.

(1). As a woman, she is helpless and lacks "phallus," which is signified as power source. In order to gain her own authority, Julia must to be a male on her way to Milan, concealing her true identity.

b. Silvia's elopement and escape from her father and Thurio

(1). Silvia depends upon Valentine's and Sir Eglamour's masculine power to run away from the match since she is powerless in the patriarchal family and society.

B. Forgiveness

1. After Proteus confesses his maleficent behavior, Valentine forgives Proteus, who betrays him and attempts to rape his lover.

2. Proteus, however, does not ask Julia's and Silvia's forgiveness.

a. Both Julia and Silvia are powerless. They are behind the scene, with no equipment left to polish, and observe the male-centered drama in which they play no active part (Haslem 129). They are outsiders in the play.

C. Love and Marriage

1. Though Julia selects Proteus as her lover and disguises herself as a page to follow Proteus actively and boldly, she can not help but wait for Proteus to repent and chooses her again. She is silent and has no authority on her own love.

2. Silvia, like Julia, is also silenced in the play, especially in the final scene of the play. She is treated as an exchange object to applaud Valentine's spirit and his love. It is Valentine that deserves love and Silvia. Silvia's bold behavior of escapement does not have any meaning. Whatever she actively performs such as her love letter hint and her plan of elopement, she has to return to face the reality that she exists in the patriarchal society.

3. Launce's love to a milkmaid is material. He compiles a "cate-log of her condition" (3.1. 274). Women's value to their husbands is their labour and their money. For Launce, the milkmaid can milk, brow good ale, knit, wash and scour, and spin. And no matter how many faults she has, the crucial reason he loves her is her wealth. In all classes of social hierarchy, it cannot be denied that women are valued as objects, and that men, even servants, own power to choose their marriage partners, who must be useful or advantageous to men.

III. Conclusion

In the play The Two Gentlemen of Verona, women, whether behaving actively or passively, are inferior to men. They are the powerless and weak group in the masculine society. Women have to eventually submit themselves to the structure of the patriarchal society, isolated and silenced to be chosen.

Shakespeare, William. The Two Gentlemen of Verona. The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Ed. David Bevington. 4th ed. NY: HarperCollins, 1992. 75-107.

- - -. The Riverside Shakespeare. Gen. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. 177-207.

Secondary Sources: Reference: Companion

Leggatt, Alexander, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespearean Comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002.

Secondary Sources: Books: Specialized Studies

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1995.

Charlton, H. B. Shakespearian Comedy. London: Methuen & Co, 1979.

Hunter, Robert Grams. Shakespeare and the Comedy of Forgiveness. NY: Columbia UP, 1965.

Ornstein, Robert. Shakespeare's Comedies: From Roman Farce to Romantic Mystery. Newark: U of Delaware P, 1986.

Parrott, Thomas Marc. Shakespearean Cemody. NY: Russell & Russell, 1962.

Ryan, Michael. Literary Theory: A Practical Introduction. Malden: Blackwell, 1999.

Turner, Robert Y. Shakespeare's Apprenticeship. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1974.

Secondary Sources: Books: Journal Articles

Bentley, Greg. "Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona." Explicator 46.4 (1988): 7-9.

Frederick, Kiefer. "Love Letters in The Two Gentlemen of Verona." Shakespeare Studies 18 (1986): 65-85.

Haslem, Lori Schroeder. "'O Me, The Word Choose!': Female Voice and Catechetical ritual in The Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Merchant of Venice." Shakespeare Studies 22 (1994): 122-40.

Scott, William O. "Proteus in Spenser and Shakespeare: the Lover's Identity." Shakespeare Studies 1 (1965): 283-93.

Simmons, J. L. "Coming out in Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona." ELH 60.4 (1993): 857-77.

Thatcher, David. "Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona." Explicator 59.2 (2001): 68-71.

Secondary Sources: Electronic Articles

"Gender, Family, Household: Seventeenth-Century Norms and Controversies." Norton Topics Online. 9 March 2003. <http://www.wwnorton.com/nael/NTO/17thC/family/family.htm>.

"The Housewife's Rich Cabinet: Remedies, Recipes, and Helpful Hints." 9 March 2003. Folger Shakespeare <http://www.folger.edu/public/exhibit/Housewives/housewif.htm>.

Houghteling, Sarah. SparkNotes on The Two Gentlemen of Verona. 9 March 2003.
<http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/twogentlemen>.

"Life of Women in Tudor England." Kelly Crispen. 9 March 2003. <http://tudors.crispen.org/tudor_women/>.

"Life in Elizabethan England 10: Marriage and Family." Maggie Pierce Secara. 9 March 2003. <http://renaissance.dm.net/compendium/10.html>.

Study Guide

SparkNotes: A website that guides you to study literary works, which includes summaries, characters, and even some questions and analyses

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Norton Topics Online: It is full of historical backgrounds of English literature.

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The Two Gentlemen of Verona

The Two Gentlemen of Verona: It is filled with editions, translations, sources, criticism, and film and music information of the play.

Theatre and Film

The Two Gentlemen of Verona: It gives a short introduction of a play in 1994.

The Shakespeare Theatre: The Two Gentlemen of Verona: The Two Gentlemen of Verona was performed in 2001. You can see some photos, play information and how they create the play.

Theatre under the Stars: The Two Gentlemen of Verona: It provides a review of the play presented by Illinois Shakespeare Festival at Westhoff Theatre during July 3 to August 5 in 1994.

Other Link

Encyclopaedia Britannia: It is a useful website for you to make a search.