Sometimes, when you’ve spent as much time reading, watching and studying Shakespeare as most drama students have, even the works of genius get a little boring. I sometimes think I’d like to go ten years without seeing Midsummer, Romeo and Juliet or Macbeth. So when I recently read two Shakespeare plays I’d never read before, it was a surprisingly great pleasure. I sort of rediscovered his great talents anew—how funny his clowns are; how clear and human his characters are, as they tell us exactly what they are feeling; how noble his heroes, how sinister his villains.
And sometimes, how ambiguous a line between hero and villain they tread. Two Gentlemen of Verona is, ostensibly, a comedy, and the afterword of one edition remarks that Shakespeare improved upon virtually every feature of Two Gents in later comedies. That is somewhat true—and it’s also true that it seems, with hindsight, like a patchwork of plot elements from Twelfth Night, Midsummer and As You Like It, plus the obligatory tyrannical father banishing people and the narcissistic, idiotic rival prancing around for the hero to mock. It begins with two best friends, Proteus and Valentine. Valentine is about to go abroad to Milan, Proteus is staying behind to woo his beloved, Julia. Valentine, who’s never been in love, gently mocks Proteus for being whipped, and they part with great affection, promising to write. Immediately, inevitably, Valentine arrives at the court of the Duke of Milan and falls in love with the Duke’s daughter, Silvia. Proteus lands at the court not long after, when his father decides he needs more education and life experience and Proteus reluctantly tears himself away from his beloved Julia. Valentine greets him rapturously and confesses to now being wildly in love and renouncing all he ever said against it.
But this is where it begins to get interesting. Proteus takes a fancy to Silvia, which he admits is bizarre and a betrayal both of Julia and Valentine, but nonchalantly admits to the audience that if he can’t rid himself of the infatuation, he’s going to pursue her with all the cunning he possesses. It’s as if Iago has suddenly stepped into the lover’s role. He contrives to get Valentine banished from court, ingratiates himself with the Duke, and attempts to woo Silvia, who tells him to bugger off and stop betraying Valentine and Julia because she’s never going to fall for him. Julia, naturally, comes to court disguised as a pageboy and goes into Proteus’s service. On the surface, it’s a plot that’s not that different from Midsummer or Twelfth Night, except that Orsino hadn’t promised himself to Viola and wasn’t best friends with Sebastian when he wooed Olivia, and Demetrius is just sort of hard-headed and jockily asinine, not coolly plotting Lysander’s downfall while pretending to be his best friend. They all end up in the forest, briefly pursued by some outlaws, and then Proteus rescues Silvia and when she still won’t give herself up to him, threatens to rape her.
This is where, by modern standards at least, it all falls apart. Till now I was fascinated by Proteus, as much as I didn’t like him; he’s a complex, very cunning character, and Valentine’s loyalty and nobility (he agrees to lead the band of outlaws as long as they don’t rob helpless women or poor people) seem more admirable given this contrast. As usual, the women retain their moral centers; Silvia not only refuses Proteus’s advances, but constantly berates him with his obligations to Julia, and Julia, witnessing this, can’t bring herself to hate or wish harm to Silvia, despite Silvia’s being the unwilling object of Proteus’s love. A complicated, interesting situation is set up, and you can sympathize with and admire three of the main characters, and at the very least be impressed with Proteus’s conniving. It’s the kind of ambiguity you might expect in a much more modern play.
But after Valentine stops Proteus just as he is about to force himself on Silvia, and expresses amazement and sorrow at Proteus’s betrayal, Proteus is suddenly overcome with regret and guilt. Valentine, to show he accepts his apology, offers to turn over Silvia to Proteus without a word to or from her. At this point, Julia (in disguise) swoons, and her identity is discovered. She takes Proteus back (albeit after a very minor tongue-lashing), and everyone is back where they belong in time for the Duke to arrive and conveniently change his mind about Valentine, who remains cheerful and noble to the end. Although I knew it was inevitable, I was appalled that Julia and Valentine forgave Proteus with so little fanfare; Silvia has no lines after crying out “O Heaven!” as Proteus is about to rape her, and I couldn’t help envisioning her standing in the back, keeping her mouth shut but looking sick to her stomach at the prospect of having to have Proteus over for dinner. I also wished the women hadn’t had so little to say at the end; this too is not unusual for a Shakespearean ending (with exceptions, of course, as Rosalind’s epilogue) but they’ve been so plucky and stuck to their principles so far, and I just found it hard to watch them muzzled as everything was sorted out neatly by the boys. It makes me wonder how bound Shakespeare was by the conventions of his time; the need to have a happy ending, lovers reunited, someone who started as good restored to goodness by the charity of his friends. I suppose later, in the tragedies, we get ambiguous characters like Macbeth and Brutus and Gertrude, who are neither totally evil nor totally good. And would it have been a satisfying ending for Julia and Valentine to have said, fuck you Proteus, and the Duke to have thrown him in prison? Probably not. But at the very least, he could have been ordered to a year of penance, or something, or Silvia could have said, don’t you ever talk to me that way again, or I will banish your ass.
But—as I said, up until the very last scene, I was wondering why people don’t do this play all the time. The saucy servants are hilarious, more comprehensibly on the page than some of Shakespeare’s saucy servants. And there is some lovely poetry, which I will leave you with here:
“What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?
What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?
Unless it be to think that she is by
And feed upon the shadow of perfection.
Except I be by Silvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale;
Unless I look on Silvia in the day,
There is no day for me to look upon.
She is my essence; and I leave to be,
If I be not by her fair influence
Foster’d, illumin’d, cherish’d, kept alive.”
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