The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Thought to be Shakespeare's earliest surviving play, The Two Gentlemen of Verona is a comedy filled with passionate lovers, women disguised as men, sword fights and sudden revelations, and a happy denouement, all underscored by a farcical subplot featuring the character Launce and his dog Crab....
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Thought to be Shakespeare's earliest surviving play, The Two Gentlemen of Verona is a comedy filled with passionate lovers, women disguised as men, sword fights and sudden revelations, and a happy denouement, all underscored by a farcical subplot featuring the character Launce and his dog Crab. Perfect for theater professionals and general readers, this marvelous edition includes an extensive performance history, a commentary illuminating the complexities of Shakespeare's language, and a setting of the song "Who is Silvia?" prepared from an Elizabethan source. The introduction by Roger Warren explores the play as a theatrical counterpart to the sonnets--a dramatization of competing kinds of love--analyzes the lyrical language, and provides further evidence that The Two Gentlemen is indeed Shakespeare's earliest play. Based on the text contained in The Oxford Shakespeare, this edition also includes substantive notes; a new, modern-spelling text, collated and edited from all existing printings; and on-page commentary and notes explain language, word-play, and staging. Attractively illustrated and durably constructed for lasting use, this is the finest edition of The Two Gentlemen in print.About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780192831422 (0192831429)
Publish date: September 15th 2008
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Pages no: 190
Edition language: English
Category:
Classics,
Humor,
Comedy,
Literature,
European Literature,
British Literature,
Romance,
Plays,
Drama,
Theatre,
Poetry,
Fiction
Series: Folger Shakespeare Library
The Two Gentlemen of Verona is probably one of Shakespeare's earliest plays. It's also one of those Shakespeare plays that people like to get their hate on for purely anachronistic reasons. In it, Shakespeare once again fails to parrot the morality of an uncritical middle class North American and ...
While The Two Gentlemen of Verona is likely the Bard at his consummate worst, it is also one of his early plays, and is not without enjoyment in its own right. Herein is the early development of some of his major themes in comedy: disguise, homosocial relations, friendship, betrayal, misguided love....
Woo boy. That ending is pretty repulsive.
Though considered a comedy, there wasn’t much to laugh about. There’s some humorous banter between the servants and some decent punning along the way. Lies, cross-dressing and love all seem to be surefire ingredients for some laughs, but it all seems rather heavy-handed as Proteus systematically b...