Valentine Rescuing Sylvia from Proteus
ShakespeareDrama

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

William Shakespearec. 1590
Influence9th pct
Popularity20th pct

Read this if you…

  • have already read the best shakespeare comedies and are checking boxes, still some gold in there

Skip this if you…

  • aren't willing to go slow, read notes, look up analyses of famous passages (only way to "get" shakespeare)
  • foolishly think shakespeare is overrated
  • haven't read his better comedies (this one is near bottom)

Why It Matters

Shakespeare's earliest comedy is a slight, charming play about friendship, betrayal, and whether loyalty beats desire. It's clearly apprentice work, but the moves it introduces, disguise and forgiveness and the fickleness of love, would carry over into the great comedies. It matters mostly as the starting point of a career that changed literature.

The Groblé Take

All the scheming is great. Proteus is a great character. Ending tied everything up a little too much

Connections

The lineage through The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Built Onwhat came beforeThe Two Gentlemen o…Metamorphoses

  • Metamorphoses by Ovid. The Two Gentlemen of Verona built on it. - The faithless Proteus is named for Ovid's god who could not hold a single shape — his changeable heart is the joke built into the name - Shakespeare laces the play with the *Metamorphoses*: Silvia mirrored against Ovid's Philomela, a Phaeton reference dropped in for those who'd read their Ovid - Knowing the source myths first makes the early Shakespeare's borrowing visible — this is a poet steeped in Ovid before he was Shakespeare
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Gallery

Depicted in Art

Valentine grips the kneeling Proteus by the shoulder after stopping his assault on Sylvia, who clings to Valentine; Julia disguised as a page watches in shock at left.

William Holman Hunt, 1851

Valentine stands between Proteus and Silvia in the forest as Julia disguised as Sebastian collapses at right, fainting on recognizing Proteus.

Angelica Kauffmann, 1789

Launce stands in a paneled dining hall holding his rough dog Crab toward a startled Silvia and the Duke at table, having presented his own cur in place of Proteus's lost gift dog.

Augustus Leopold Egg, 1849

Valentine kneels in earnest courtship of Silvia in the Duke's chamber while her father feigns sleep nearby, eavesdropping on the elopement plot.

Alfred Elmore, 1857

The 18th-century actor Richard Yates stands in costume as Launce with Crab on a leash, soliloquizing — a theatrical portrait of the play's clown role.

Valentine raises his sword at the mouth of the outlaws' cave as Silvia struggles in Proteus's grip, with the disguised Julia/Sebastian standing behind them.

Francis Wheatley, 1792

Editions

Recommended Editions

#1Top Pick$9.99$9.31

Folger Shakespeare Library

2005

Folger's the readable one. Text on one page, notes on the facing page, written in plain English instead of textbook-speak. Catches every word and reference you'd otherwise Google, without breaking the scene to do it.

Buy on Bookshop
#2

SparkNotes (No Fear Shakespeare)

2003

#3

Arden Shakespeare

2004

$18.34Buy

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Deep Dive

What It's About

Spoiler warning

This summary gives away plot details.

Notable Quotes

“Who is Silvia? what is she, That all our swains commend her? Holy, fair and wise is she; The heaven such grace did lend her, That she might admired be.”

— Serenade to Silvia, Act 4 Scene 2

“Who is Silvia? What is she, that all our swains commend her?”

— William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona

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