SOURCE: “The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” in Realism in Shakespeare's Romantic Comedies: “O Heavenly Mingle,” University Press of America, 1980, pp. 51-65.

[In the following essay, Felheim and Traci discuss The Two Gentlemen of Verona as a comedy based on realism, characterizing it as a play about change and growth.]

Proteus: Yet writers say: as in the sweetest bud
The eating canker dwells, so eating Love
Inhabits in the finest wits of all

(I. i. 42-44).

I

The theme of The Two Gentlemen of Verona centers in the idea of change, a concept embodied in the very name, Proteus, of one of the two gentlemen. When we first meet the young men, they are provincials, “… living dully sluggardiz'd at home” (I. i. 7), in Verona. And, as Valentine asserts, “Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits” (l. 2). His thesis is almost immediately demonstrated in the scene between Proteus and Speed (ll. 70ff.) where the lugubrious wit of gentlemen and clown alike is amply shown in a discussion about sheep and shepherds.

Valentine is not alone in his view that “shapeless idleness” (l. 8) tends to demoralize the young. A bit later, Proteus' uncle requests Panthino “to importune” Proteus' father, Antonio, “to let him [Proteus] spend his time no more at home” (I. iii. 13-14). Antonio agrees that a youth “cannot be a perfect man,”

Not being tried and tutor'd in the world:
Experience is by industry achiev'd,
And perfected by the swift course of time

(ll. 20-23).

Consequently, by the end of Act I, both young gentlemen are headed for the Court of the Emperor at Milan. Their exposure to “experience” and to “travel” will be their education. And so the comedy has as its base a very realistic situation:¹ the need for young gentlemen to be educated in the ways of the world. The play follows its chief characters to Milan. Indeed, only six short scenes of The Two Gentlemen of Verona are set in the city mentioned in the title; three of these scenes make up Act I; three others are in Act II. After that, we are either in Milan (a total of eleven scenes) or in a forest on the frontiers of Mantua (three scenes). In these latter two settings the real education of Valentine and Proteus takes place.

At the beginning of Act II, we find Valentine at the Court. Curiously, from this point on there are no further reference to the “Emperor” who, according to Proteus, once “daily graced” (I. iii. 58) the life of Valentine. In this very much love-centered Court, Valentine has a more interesting instructor: Silvia, the daughter of the Duke. His training with her has already begun: at her command, he has been engaged in writing love letters for her. She, lazy but clever (at least more agile-minded than he), simply sends the letters back to him, a device which he fails utterly to understand. Fortunately, Speed prompts him: “… she hath made you write to yourself” (II. i. 144), and queries: “… do you not perceive the jest?” Valentine's education, alas, has not progressed as quickly as Speed's. He is blinded by love. Speed, whose name ordinarily belies his condition but who is generally on hand to parody the situation, has, after all, had experience of this kind before: in Verona, he delivered letters for Proteus to his love, Julia. Letters, then, represent no new educational experience for Speed. Valentine has so far learned little, but he is in no condition to apprehend much; he is in love. Thus the initial situation in Milan repeats that in Verona: a young gentleman in love. He has “learned,” as Speed points out,

(like Sir Proteus) to wreath your arms like a malcontent; to relish a love-song, like a robin redbreast; to walk alone, like one that had the pestilence; to sigh, like a schoolboy that had lost his ABC; to weep, like a young wench that had buried her grandam; to fast, like one that takes diet; to watch, like one that fears robbing; to speak puling, like a beggar at Hallowmas

(ll. 18-25)

The practice of writing letters, a task imposed upon him by Silvia, provides in truth an apt but difficult lesson for the schoolboy, Valentine.

By the end of Act II, both the young gentlemen of Verona are in Milan and both are in love with Silvia. Further, Proteus has admitted that in his new love he is both “forsworn” and “threefold” (II. vi. 3-5) perjured (he has left Julia, he loves Siliva, he wrongs his friend Valentine). So much for the “experience” provided by the Court in Milan: sophisticated and worldly, it is also, at least for Valentine and Proteus, exclusively love-oriented. Only the servants, Speed and Launce, perceive the absurdity of the situation; their actions provide a continual comment and parody.

If neither of the young gentlemen learns much (except perfidy on the part of Proteus) in Milan, that failure may be a revealing truth on Shakespeare's part. The corrupted, excessively mannered Court is no place for real education. The lesson will be repeated in A Midsummer Night's Dream, where, again, the Court at Athens threatens the young lovers. At a court, especially one in a city, the best things that can be learned are likely to be manners and rhetoric. Love letters become a substitute for love itself; the game of love—wooing—becomes an end in itself. This is indeed Shakespeare's point; as always, he makes it directly in terms of action; and here, as elsewhere in the comedies, clowns and servants are on hand to demonstrate the reality and truth of the dramatist's position. By parody—accomplished both in actions and in words—the central comic situation is reinforced and intensified.

But real love is possible, of course. So, too, young people can learn. Shakespeare's comedies are essentially optimistic documents. The learning and the loving, however, must take place in an appropriate setting—in nature. Hence the scenes on the frontiers of Mantua, where both men and the physical world exist in a state of nature. As in both A Midsummer Night's Dream and As You Like It, the forest is a haunt for free men and true. Valentine is immediately welcomed there “for he is a proper man” (IV. i. 10). After a bit of preliminary braggadocio, “I kill'd a man, whose death I much repent” (l. 27), he is invited to “… be the captain of us all” (l. 65). His acceptance is conditional:

Provided that you do no outrages
On silly women or poor passengers

(ll. 71-72).

As expected, these followers of the doctrine of Robin Hood are men who “detest such vile base practices” (l. 73). Thus the world of the outlaws is presented as a refuge of justice and good deeds, away from the disorders of the city and the court.

To this retreat come the principal characters, one and all to be reformed or rewarded in the natural setting. Proteus, Thurio and the Duke will change from baseness to goodness here; Valentine, Silvia and Julia (her “grace” is more obvious than her disguise) will have their innate virtue recognized and rewarded. And, finally, the outlaws who, after all, “Are men endu'd with worthy qualities” (V. iv. 151), will be pardoned and reintegrated into civil society.

In this manner, the education of the young gentlemen is completed. In the process, Valentine has acquired a knowledge of languages (interestingly enough, this attribute is the crowning achievement which renders him fit to be “king” of the outlaws):

My youthful travel therein made me happy [he is a “linguist”

(l. 57)]

Or else I often had been miserable

(ll. 34-35),

of nature:

This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,
I better brook than flourishing peopled towns

(V. iv. 2-3),

and of men: once Proteus admits his “shame and guilt” (l. 73) and asks for forgiveness, Valentine can with equanimity offer him “All that was mine in Silvia …” (l. 83), knowing full well that Proteus can but match his own open heartedness (especially since Julia is on hand to provide Proteus “my wish for ever” [l. 118]). In addition, Valentine has learned to recognize the goodness of his fellow outlaws, so he is able to persuade the Duke to rescind their banishment. Finally, of course, he possesses the knowledge of the constant love he shares with Silvia. Proteus also has learned his lesson: “O heaven, were man But constant, he were perfect!” (ll. 109-110) And on the basis of this pious hope, he reverts to his former love.

Thurio, too, has undergone a natural change. His experiences in the forest have led him to the realistic discovery that a man is “but a fool that will endanger / His body for a girl that loves him not” (ll. 131-132).

Finally, the hot-headed Duke of Milan has cooled off in the forest. First, he must recognize Valentine's worth, to which he subscribes:

                              Sir Valentine
Thou art a gentleman …
Take thou thy Siliva, for thou hast deserv'd her

(ll. 143-145).

Next he pardons the outlaws and joins with the others in a general recapitulation of all that has transpired: “The story of your loves discovered” (l. 169). It is altogether fitting (and realistic), then, that the conclusion of this tale of two city gentlemen should take place in the forest, for only after a series of disquieting experiences have they learned the truth about the human condition. Now, at least, are they fit for a “day of marriage / One feast, one house, one mutual happiness” (ll. 170-171). The rewards are great, but the trials have been sufficient and the play has demonstrated the profound truth at its heart that love can be earned by wisdom and faith.

II

The comic subplot of The Two Gentlemen of Verona revolves realistically around the words and antics of two servants, Speed and Launce. They are the typical lower-class clowns of Shakespearean drama, drawn probably from the Elizabethan world in the midst of which Shakespeare lived. Insofar as they can be isolated from the main plot their actions and their statements provide both a parody of and a comment on the principal doings. As such theirs is an extension of the main action. Generally speaking, however, they are intricately involved in the main plot: they go from Verona to Milan with their masters, Speed with Valentine, Launce with Proteus; when Valentine is captured by the outlaws in the forest, Speed is with him and is also taken prisoner. On the other hand, they can see their masters with some objectivity and they inform the audience of their masters' states. So Speed observes Valentine to be in love, just as later Launce notes the perfidious behavior of Proteus. Both comics generally speak in prose; and, on most occasions, they are the cause for the use of prose on the part of other characters who converse with them.

In all, the comics appear in seven scenes, out of the twenty in the play. Their actions are neatly spaced through the first four acts. Needless to say, neither appears in the final act, for in Act V the young gentlemen and their ladies, the Duke and Thurio are at last undergoing the real experience of education and neither parody nor comment is necessary. The final act of The Two Gentlemen of Verona is, indeed, quite serious; the absence of Speed and Launce testifies to that condition.

The two clowns have quite markedly different natures. Speed is a punster; he is continually involved in making witty comments either to or about other characters in the play. Launce is more elemental. He has three soliloquies in the course of the action; two are with his dog, and although they are extremely funny, both in terms of action and words, he is not a deliberate word manipulator; he succeeds accidentally or unconsciously, whereas Speed uses words with his quick sense of meaning fully at work. Launce's third soliloquy occurs in Act III, scene i, when he explains to the audience that despite his own foolishness he can see through the knavery of his master, Proteus. Launce's first soliloquy (II. iii) consists of his farewell to his indifferent dog, Crab; the episode follows immediately upon the scene of parting between Proteus and Julia and thus serves as a parody of sentimentality. The other soliloquy with Crab (IV. iv) relates the misbehavior of the dog in polite society and in this way pokes fun at all the stereotyped love and wooing at the Court. These two soliloquies are immensely funny, not only because they expose Launce's very low origins and concepts but because Crab, too, is a comic figure, indifferent to the parting from his master in the first instance and having behaved in a shameless unhousebroken fashion in the second.

Speed's scenes involve him in repartee with Proteus (I. i), with Valentine (II. i) and with Launce (II. v and III. i). In the opening scene of the play, he jests with Proteus about the sheep-like behavior of human beings; then they discuss the payment which Speed wangles out of Proteus in return for delivering a love letter to Julia. In the next act, we find Speed noting Valentine's state (love); he then points out that love is blind. Later in the scene, he explains to Valentine how Silvia is using him to write letters for her. In the first of his two scenes with Launce, Speed puns on words such as “stand” and “understand.” Their second scene together finds Speed again involved with a “love” letter: this one is simply a list of the qualities, virtues and vices both, of Launce's girl. The comedy here consists of the unexpected: the nature both of the young woman described and of Launce's reactions to her characteristics.

III

The soliloquy is, certainly, one of the most interesting as well as most typical of Shakespearean dramatic devices. Ordinarily, we are inclined to associate the dramatic monologue with the more serious tragic characters, with Hamlet especially and with Macbeth.

Generally speaking, Shakespeare uses the soliloquy infrequently in his early plays; the best known examples are in the early histories, particularly in Richard II and Richard III. The Two Gentlemen of Verona is an interesting minor exception to Shakespeare's usual practice. Launce's three comic prose soliloquies have already been mentioned. More provocative are four soliloquies of Julia and seven of Proteus.

Julia's monologues occur in pairs. The first two (in. I. ii) deal with a letter from Proteus, which has been delivered by Speed to Julia's waiting-woman, Lucetta. In her first soliloquy Julia expresses her dilemma: she is caught between her desire to see the letter and the need she feels to appear indifferent to love. Her second soliloquy (40 lines later in the same scene; Lucetta has three entrances and three exits in the scene, thus providing Julia with opportunities to be alone in order to soliloquize) finds her picking up pieces of the torn-up letter in an effort to find meaningful phrases. This letter scene is delightful. It shows us a young, aristocratic girl in love, being coy and forward by starts. The soliloquies provide a means for her to utter her thought aloud. As such, they are of course conventional stage devices. But they also allow for a kind of psychological realism; we are enabled thereby to understand the character and situation of Julia; soliloquies used in this manner are a short cut, for they supply information directly and quickly which would otherwise require a longer scene and several characters.

Julia's second brace of soliloquies occurs in Act IV. She is now in Milan, in disguise as a young man named Sebastian, in the service of her lover, Proteus. Her “master” has just requested that she take a ring to his new love, Silvia. She soliloquizes: in the course of some eighteen lines, she tells us that the ring is the same she herself gave to Proteus in Verona; and she explains further that she is prompted to do Proteus' wooing—although somewhat “coldly”—out of pity, for being in love she can pity another lover. Some lines later, she concludes the scene (iv) with a second soliloquy (of 27 lines). She has just had a long interview with Silvia, during which she has learned that that lady does not return Proteus' affection. Further, she has posed as a former intimate of Julia. Now, alone, she compares Silvia's picture to herself, not to her own discredit (Love, however, is blind; or, if not, he certainly does not at the moment see with Julia's eyes). Again, in these lines, Julia seems to be offering the audience a realistic explanation for her behavior: knowing now that Silvia does not love Proteus, Julia can pursue her course of pretending to be Proteus' go-between. Thus, again, the monologue enables Shakespeare easily to present a complex dramatic situation; at the same time, we are allowed a true insight into a young woman's heart.

Julia's soliloquies arise directly from the action and/or the situation in which she finds herself. The soliloquies of Proteus, on the other hand, are consequent upon his character. Thus, we find at the very beginning of his career that Shakespeare demonstrates a varied dramaturgy, even in the use of such a conventional device as the soliloquy.

Two of Proteus' soliloquies are very short (3 lines); they are merely tags to end a scene. Such are his lines at the end of Act I, scene i, when he indicates that he cannot trust Speed to deliver his letters or, again, when in Act II, scene ii, he exchanges rings with Julia before parting; she is obviously too overcome to speak and so exits. His three lines simply acknowledge that “true love … cannot speak.” (And we must acknowledge that the fact that Shakespeare puts words into Proteus' mouth at this moment gives us a hint that his love may not be “true.”)

Proteus' first soliloquy occurs in the opening scene of the play, following his farewell to Valentine. He tells us frankly that whereas his friend “after honour hunts,” he, Proteus, seeks only “love” (l. 63). At the moment, it is

… Julia, thou hast metamorphos'd me;
Made me neglect my studies, lose my time,
War with good counsel, set the world at nought

(ll. 66-68).

But, like the young Romeo, he will soon enough change his allegiance. As a matter of fact, in his ten-line soliloquy in scene iii of Act I, he acknowledges the fickleness of young love.

O, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day

(ll. 84-85),

is his lament; the careful listener is thus prepared for change à la Proteus.

And change is not long in coming. By scenes iv and vi of Act II, Proteus, in two lengthy soliloquies (23 lines and 43 lines respectively), admits his nature. He relationalizes, of course, and excuses himself by analogy:

Even as one heat another heat expels
Or as one nail by strength drives out another

(II. iv. 188-189).

All this, yet he has seen only Silvia's picture and heard her praised by Valentine. Impressionable young man, indeed! A veritable votary of the love goddess. Speed and Launce in scene v provide the substance between Proteus' two soliloquies, one at the end of scene iv, the other at the beginning of scene vi. The meeting of the two servants in Milan (Launce has his dog with him) raises the question, will Proteus marry Julia, and allows Speed to inform Launce that Valentine has become “a notable lover” (l. 37). Perhaps their somewhat silly punning of the words, “stand” and “understand” is intended to be a reflection on Proteus' position. At any event, Proteus' soliloquy in scene vi is his longest speech in the play. He tells us frankly that although he is forsworn for it, he no longer loves Julia but loves his friend's lover, Silvia. To all this he adds a disarmingly candid statement about self-love which prompts him to his present state. For should he retain the love of Julia and Valentine, then he loses himself (i.e., his new identity as lover of Silvia. “I to myself am dearer than a friend” (l. 23), is his creed. On this basis he will inform the Duke of Valentine's plans to abduct Silvia; then, the Duke having banished Valentine as a consequence, Proteus has no doubt of his own capacity to win Silvia's love for himself, away from the potential rival, Thurio. He concludes by putting himself completely under the power of the God of Love:

Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift
As thou has lent me wit to plot this drift

(ll. 42-43).

Thus Shakespeare carefully and realistically presents the youthful deceiver, explaining as clearly as possible, the basis of his character and actions.

Proteus has one more soliloquy, in Act IV. He begins scene ii (in scene i, Valentine has been captured by the outlaws) with a short recapitulation of his perfidy:

Already have I been false to Valentine
And now I must be as unjust to Thurio

To this he adds the information that Silvia rejects his love, chastising him for his unfaithfulness to friend and former beloved.

Yet, spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love,
The more it grows, and fawneth on her still

(ll. 14-15).

(His “dog-like” devotion differs in character and style from the “indifference” of the real dog, Crab.) This is the last insight we have into Proteus' thinking via the soliloquy. In Act V, he will reform, both in deed and word; hence, there will be no need for the kind of rationalizing which has characterized his soliloquies in the preceding four acts.

Act V of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, as has been pointed out above, is different from the other four acts, in terms of setting, action, theme. There is a shift, too, in the character of the soliloquy as it is used here. Proteus has been the most consistent user of this convention; his seven soliloquies total 105 lines. Julia, in turn, has spoken 87 lines of verse in four soliloquies. Launce, in three comic prose monologues has accounted for 87 lines. In Act V, there are two soliloquizers: Eglamour and Valentine. The former opens the first scene of the act with a 6-line statement, necessary for establishing time, place and action. He tells us it is dusk, he is at “An Abbey” to meet Silvia to conduct her to Valentine. The practical dramatic nature of these lines is obvious.

Valentine's soliloquy (V. iv. 1-18) is his second in the play. Previously, in Act III, scene i, he uttered some 18 lines of verse in which he lamented his banishment from Silvia: “What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?” (l. 175). Now he opens the final scene of the play with a statement about the beauties of the Arcadian world:

This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods
I better brook than flourishing peopled towns

(ll. 2-3).

These haunts charm because they allow him to think about his missing love. Such reveries are soon interrupted, however, by the “stir” of the outlaws and the arrival of the other principal characters. Again, this soliloquy is significant primarily because it sets the scene and the mood, an atmosphere which, on the other hand, will all too soon be changed and left behind. For all its loveliness, the Arcadian setting, where human conflicts can be resolved, does not in Shakespeare ever provide the ultimate home of men. Purified and restored by nature, Shakespeare's characters inevitably return to the cities, there presumably to lead their lives amid pressing, realistic but civilized conditions. So The Two Gentlemen of Verona ends with complete acceptance of the way of life of the city state. The Duke forgives those who need his benevolence; he will return to Milan to rule. The others, after their forest “exile,” will reenter civil life as his subjects. The ending, while it celebrates marriage, forgiveness and reconciliations also emphasizes the social aspect of existence and thus suggests the basic realism of Shakespearean comedy.

Notes

1. Although we join with Clifford Leech in his assertion prefaced to his New Arden edition of the play that “no one is likely to claim that The Two Gentlemen of Verona is a masterpiece” (p. lxxi), we would hardly adhere to the standard view that “in some ways The Two Gentlemen appears to take its place among his most artificial plays, as a play on the débat-theme of lover versus friendship” (p. xxv), or that it is “not a play where detailed comment on the characters is a worthwhile occupation” (p. lxxiii).