#fun fact! I did not know proteus was a canon name

[theflyingkipper]

proteus dude we’ve been looking for you everywhere!!

[projectshakespearia]

Two Gentlemen of Verona: World of the Play Part III

Valentine rescuing Sylvia from Proteus depicted by Angelica Kauffmann in 1789.

Introduction While it may be easy to dwell upon some of the inherent weaknesses in Two Gentlemen of Verona, there are also many merits in this comic caper. Multiple devices, plot strands, and character personalities seem to be templates for Shakespeare’s later (and greater) works. In the oft disputed timeline of the Shakespeare canon, this may have well been his first play. Examining the text as the work of a budding writer experimenting with this craft (I’m imagining my beginning playwriting students here) I can see a talented kid with a lot of great ideas, but not always a strong sense of how to put them together. I’ll say it again, even Shakespeare had to start somewhere! This post will explore some of the stronger attributes of Two Gents and suggest where creative seeds were sown only to bloom fully later in his career.

What Characters! It’s difficult to quantify exactly why Shakespeare remains so adored, so produced, so revered centuries after his death. As a director, I love the possibilities in a Shakespeare play. His plays are playful. The fact that they were initially written to be performed in relatively minimalist conditions with language used to describe setting provides limitless open worlds to interpret and conceptualize. Shakespeare is demanding of actors and demanding of his audiences to imagine and embrace the “theatrical” rather than consume naturalistic representations of “life” as we do in watching film or television. But within these highly fantastical spaces that knit together history, mythology, folk stories, poetry, and romances live characters that breathe. Shakespeare’s characters range from the lowliest of “foolish fools” to the loftiest Kings and Sorcerers from magical sprites to abandoned princesses, but they all share a common thread of humanity and humor. Shakespeare’s characters all possess some spark of the universal which makes them intriguing companions for audiences to join on a two hour journey. (Or, in many cases, four hours.)

In Harold Bloom’s Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, he posits that in writing before Shakespeare, literary character was relatively unchanging. The likes of Classical figures such as Agamemnon or Oedipus might encounter a revelation for which they suffer and die, but their change occurs due to their relationship to fate or the gods. “In Shakespeare, characters develop rather than unfold, and they develop because they recognize themselves.” He asserts in his collection of essays that Shakespeare essentially “invents” the human in a very humanist sense. Shakespearean characters are capable of growth, change, self-discovery, and self-reflection. This is perhaps one reason actors enjoy playing Shakespeare so much - even when the sense of reality is heightened and theatrical, characters respond to each other and the world around them in relatable ways.

Proteus and Valentine Shakespeare reveals truth about human character and foibles, and heightens these quirks to comic effect. Consider the way in which Proteus instantly shifts his affections from one woman to the next and back again. Proteus draws attention to his own fickle failings: “O heaven, were man but constant, he were perfect!” After everything that Proteus has done at this late point in the play including lying, manipulation, trickery, abandonment, breaking promises, and attempted rape, this underwhelming self-assessment is very funny. Proteus’ journey is one of being repeatedly “metamorphosed” each time he encounters something new: losing Valentine, his journey to Milan, encountering Sylvia, his re-discovery of Julia. Proteus lives up to his name embodying a “protean” man, elastic and possessing many dimensions. While he may represent an extreme plastic and pliable personality, he is nonetheless, perfectly human: flawed, resilient, and capable of change.

Proteus’ absurdly lovesick behaviors are echoed and more developed in later comic and dramatic works. Consider Romeo’s painful infatuation with Rosalind, instantly transformed the moment we sets eyes upon Juliet: “Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.” Even Romeo and Juliet’s first “tender kiss” is reminiscent of Julia and Proteus’ pledge to “seal the bargain with a holy kiss.” Proteus is a first draft of the besotted Orsino being taught the very nature of love and devotion by a page in disguise or the naively charming Orlando undergoing a similar transformation under the tutelage of Rosalind. Shakespeare loves depicting foolish young men blundering their way in and out of relationships with less foolish young women.

Valentine, too, undergoes great change throughout the play. In the first scene, he eschews the idea of love and chides Proteus: “Love is your master, for he masters you; and he that is so yoked by a fool, methinks should not be chronicled for wise.” But, as his cleverly observant servant, Speed, points out that he, too, has transformed because of love. Valentine admits to Proteus when their reunite in Milan his, “life is altered now.”

Love causes the deeply-rooted friendship to completely alter the objectives of the nascent young lovers. While Valentine turns his newly discovered romantic vigor towards wooing and wedding Sylvia, most of Proteus’ energy goes into undermining both Valentine and Thurio for the sake of winning Sylvia’s heart. Valentine’s sole purpose becomes Sylvia, so much that when he thinks he has lost her, he is no longer “Valentine” but has been reduced to “nothing.” 

Neither of these young men are sophisticated enough to understand love or women and Shakespeare pokes fun at their inability to figure it out without the prodding of those around them, whether it be their servants or the objects of their affection.

Syliva and Julia The female counterparts to the male protagonists are typical of many of other Shakespearean heroines in their cleverness, grit, and maturity. Shakespeare writes his females, whether they are sisters, cousins, or devoted friends in pairs; one wide-eyed and plucky and one slightly sadder and wiser. This template is evident in duos including Helena/Hermia, Rosalind/Celia, Beatrice/Hero, and even Kate/Bianca. In every case, the young female lovers possess wisdom and determination in matters of love and devotion where the male lovers lack these qualities. Even more often do the women teach the likes of Orlando, Orsino, and Claudio how to properly woo a woman and love a woman.

Sylvia and Julia are both delightful constructs of Shakespeare’s imagination, and in many ways better developed that Valentine or Proteus. Both are proactive, although Julia more so, and exercise their own agency to either get what they want or avoid something they don’t want. Both, in her own way, teaches her love interest lessons on love.

Both women are constrained by their social structure not to actively pursue men they are interested in and both, at times, use letters as a means of expressing emotion. In the Elizabethan world, and as Shakespeare points out through Helena in Midsummer, that the idea of a woman wooing a man was against nature and that women were “not made to woo.” In Julia’s first scene with Lucetta, she tries to get around vocally expressing her interest in Proteus, by subtly prodding Lucetta to talk about his qualities instead. When Lucetta delivers a letter from Proteus, Julia denies that she wants to see it. But she, of course, does want the letter. She chides Lucetta in hopes that she will “for the letter to [her] view” because she is a maid. Here Shakespeare emphasizes the complexities of love games and how everyone must play their part appropriately. Lucetta should know better that Julia’s status prevents her from overtly expressing attraction and Julia should know enough to find a way around social convention to get what she wants. In the end, after some teasing and clever wordplay, Lucetta delivers the letter and expresses her approval of Proteus over Julia’s other potential suitors.

Julia is very preoccupied with her status and modesty, which is at odds with her attraction to Proteus. She is the one, after all, who asks to seal their bond physically upon his parting. After Proteus’ prolonged absence, Julia decides to take matters into her own hands and asks Lucetta: “fit me with such weeds as may beseem some well-reputed page.” She knows she has to cast off her gender in order to enter the world of men and she speaks of Proteus using language echoing Speed’s regard of Valentine as a “hot lover.” Julia, being denied Proteus, only wants him more:

O, know’st though not his looks are my soul’s food? Pity the dearth that I have pined in, By longing for that food so long a time. Didst thou but know the inly touch of love, Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow As seek to quench the fire of love with words.

Julia, to put it bluntly, is hot for Proteus, and is willing to risk her reputation in order to see him again. Desire wins out over social convention and thus she departs to Milan where she finds herself part of a complex love triangle. As part of Proteus’ convoluted plot to win over Sylvia by outwitting his two rivals, he has Thurio perform a romantic song for Sylvia and then claim the credit for himself. Julia, now donning the identity of Sebastian, watches the performance, heartbroken at the notion that Proteus is now actively pursing another woman. To add insult to injury, Proteus then enlists the help of Sebastian to deliver a letter and ring, the very ring that Julia had given Proteus back in Verona, to the hands of Sylvia. Julia, tormented by the decision to aid Proteus in getting what he wants even if it is at odds with her desires, soliloquizes in a manner echoing Proteus’ self-assessment earlier in the play. When first confronted with the decision to betray Valentine and pursue Sylvia, Proteus laments:

I cannot leave to love, and yet I do; But there I have to love where I should love. Julia I lose and Valentine I lose: If I keep them, I needs must lost myself; If I lose them, thus find I by their loss For Valentine myself, for Julia, Sylvia. I to myself am dearer than a friend, For love it still most precious in itself.

Proteus, once again, has been transformed by love to identify himself only by the love he feels. There is nothing else. He cannot be friend to Valentine and true to himself. He cannot be devoted to Julia and true to himself. Valuing his own self more than Valentine or Julia, he chooses this Proteus over previous iterations.

Julia responds differently to a similar romantically-charged identity crisis:

How many women would do such a message? Alas, poor Proteus, thou has entertained A fox to be the shepherd of thy lambs! Alas, poor fool, why do I pity him That with his heart despiseth me? Because he loves her, he despiseth me. Because I love him, I must pity him. This ring I gave him when he parted from me To bind him to remember my good will; And now am I, unhappy messenger, To plead for that which I would not obtain, To carry that which I would have refused, To praise his faith which I would have dispraised. I am my master’s true-confirmed love, But cannot be true servant to my master Unless I prove false traitor to myself. Yet I will woo for him, yet so coldly As, heaven it knows, I would not have him speed.

In this passage, rich with imagery, Julia grapples with which persona to embrace. She is simultaneously all of these things, a fox, an unhappy messenger, a servant, and none of these things as she has layered disguise upon disguise in her pursuit of Proteus. Underneath the page’s clothing, she is a young woman in love with a man and in order to fulfill her duty as servant to her unwitting master, she must betray her true self. In the end, both she and Proteus choose to honor the power of love, but in different ways. Proteus does so by honoring the love that will please himself and Julia honors to love that will please the one she loves.

Luckily for Julia, Sylvia remains steadfastly devoted to Valentine. Sylvia’s behavior towards her beloved, while perhaps slightly more restrained than Julia’s, bears certain similarities. Julia has Lucetta serving as go-between, but Sylvia relies on her own crafty device to express her interest in Valentine. Rather than tell him directly, which would be unseemly for a woman of her station, she enlists Valentine as servant to write letters in her name for a supposed lover. Valentine, as Julia later does for Proteus, agrees to aid the one he loves and composes letters and delivers them to Sylvia for her to distribute. Sylvia then hands the letters back to an extremely befuddled Valentine.

VALENTINE: Madam, they are for you. SYLVIA: Ay, ay, you writ them, sir, at my request; But I will none of them; they are for you; I would have had them writ more movingly.

It takes Valentine the witty explanation of Speed to understand Sylvia’s meaning. I want to write you romantic letters, get it? Eventually, of course Valentine does get it and the pair of lovers finds themselves on the happy path towards a union, but for the Duke’s disapproval and Proteus’ meddling.

Love in the Space Between When Valentine is banished by the Duke, Sylvia takes a familiar proactive course of action by following him into the wilderness. While Julia literally changes herself into a male form to protect her virtue, Sylvia shields herself by enlisting the honorable Sir Eglamour to guide her to Mantua. This begins a series of “chases” of one lover in pursuit of another, in a way prefiguring the chaotic and comic quartet that ventures into the woods outside of Athens in Midsummer. Sylvia pursues Valentine for love. The Duke pursues Sylvia in a rage. Thurio pursues Sylvia for the sake of proving his honor. Proteus then pursues to win Sylvia for love. Finally, Julia chases after Proteus chasing after Sylvia.

Once all the characters enter the green space, outside the strictures of city society, all hell breaks loose and subversions are allowed to play out. The Duke is captured by a ragtag group of banished men, Proteus “rescues” Sylvia from the same bandits only to attempt to “love [her] ‘gainst the nature of love,” and Julia is finally free to reveal her true identity, honor be damned. Only once every “rule” is essentially broken, are things allowed to be repaired to a “happy close.” Valentine admonishes Proteus for his betrayal of friendship and Julia, in her final courageous act holds Proteus accountable for what he put her through:

O Proteus, let this habit make thee blush! Be thou ashamed that I have took upon me Such an immodest rainment, it shame live In a disguise of love: It is the lesser blot, modesty finds, Women to change their shapes than men their minds.

Proteus, thoroughly shamed, begs forgiveness all around. And, of course, it is granted. In addition, the bandits are forgiven by the Duke and allowed to return to civilized life, Thurio gives up his claim to Sylvia, the Duke recognizes Valentine’s worthiness and approves the match to his daughter, and Proteus and Julia are reconciled. In this scene of “mutual happiness,” the one much-maligned seemingly strange point is Valentine’s initial forgiveness of Proteus where he essentially “gives” Sylvia away to his friend. Granted, it is weirdly misogynistic and difficult to rationalize in a modern world. But, considered within the context of the green space, it may make more sense as a first attempt to “right” the subverted world. Proteus has upended their friendship, Valentine calls him out, Proteus begs for forgiveness, and joyously because of his own love for Proteus, Valentine acts as Julia does - putting the desires of the person he loves most (in this case, Proteus) before his own desires.

This arrangement, is of course, very short-lived as it serves as catalyst for Julia’s reveal and Proteus’ final realization: “What is in Sylvia’s face, but I may spy more fresh in Julia’s with a constant eye?” Proteus has, chameleon-like, altered himself repeatedly in this play, and not yet found happiness. In observing the devotion and love Sylvia, Julia, and Valentine perform for him (even Sylvia warns him multiple times to rediscover his “first best love” in Julia Proteus) realizes that perhaps he would do best to be a devoted lover.

While by no means a perfect play and certainly not progressive in terms of gender roles, Two Gents is rich with humor and complex characterizations. In essence, this is an exploration of a common Shakespearean theme he revisits countless times: the tension between the devotion of women and the inconstancy of men in matters of the heart. In the end, the clever and passionate women succeed where the men fail by temporarily upending convention in order to become active wooers. The men learn from this experience and the “natural” order restored.

Two Gents is not without its charms and while some transitions and motivations may have been improved by the addition of a couple lines of dialogue, it does overall contain the essential elements for a crowd-pleasing romantic comedy: misunderstandings, conflict, music, chase scenes, and ultimately happiness for all involved.