Limes with Orange

Having just mentioned Asimov and Shakespeare in the same breath, well... same post (Why, Robot?), I thought it would be interesting to see what Asimov had to say about the play, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, in his book Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare.

He starts by saying, "Of Shakespeare's early comedies, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, written about 1594, is perhaps the most forgettable. It is so weak, in fact, that some critics think it may have been written as early as 1590 or else the version we now have is a mangled copy of the real play." Ouch. Harsh.

I'm actually rather fond of this play, but I'm perfectly willing to admit that it could just be because it was my first Shakespearean acting role (the part of Julia, when I was in grade six). And I completely understand why the problematic ending is a magnet for criticism.

If you're not familiar with the play, the problems in a nutshell are that some characters (particularly Proteus) do some pretty heinous things to the ones they're supposed to love, but everybody forgives everyone else instantly and we're supposed to believe it's happy endings all around.

To go into slightly more detail: The play opens with best friends Proteus and Valentine (the two gentlemen of the title) and Proteus is in love with Julia who actually loves him back. Valentine goes to another city on his own and falls in love with Silvia, who also loves him back but whose father doesn't approve. Proteus ends up meeting up with Valentine. The minute he meets Silvia he forgets about his Julia and cares not about the love between Silvia and Valentine. He ends up being responsible for having his friend Valentine banished. Meanwhile, Julia has dressed up as a man, "Sebastian," to follow her true love. Upon her arrival, she discovers that Proteus is now in love with someone else. Through a series of events that I won't go into, Silvia is captured by outlaws and rescued by Proteus. Now we enter the beginning of the problematic end, at which point I'll hand the prose over to Asimov...

"[Silvia] still refuses to listen to [Proteus'] protestations of love (which Valentine overhears, so that he learns the truth at last). The desperate Proteus threatens rape and then, finally, Valentine confronts his false friend. After Valentine's tongue-lashing, Proteus tearfully repents and at once Valentine forgives him. Valentine does more than that, in fact. He says:

...that my love may appear plain and free,
All that was mine in Silvia I give thee.
~ Act V, scene iv, lines 82-83

"Most critics find it utterly beyond the bound of reason to suppose that Valentine should on an instant forgive an all-but-unforgivable falseness in his friend and then abandon his love to him as well — to say nothing of the insult offered Silvia in treating her as though she were a sack of wheat to be bartered. Some suspect a corrupt text, an ill-remembered denouement, a cut version.

"Any of these possibilities may be so for all we know, and yet it might also be argued that Shakespeare meant it exactly as it stands. There is some reason to suspect that Shakespeare may have had homosexual tendencies, but there are no outright homosexuals in his plays except for Patroclus in Troilus and Cressida, and that was enforced by the Greek tale. Nevertheless, there are a number of cases in the romances in which friendship between males is suspiciously close and in which the language used between them is suspiciously ardent. The case of Valentine and Proteus is one of them and it is just possible to argue that Shakespeare was trying to maintain that affection between males was a higher and stronger emotion than that between the opposite sexes.

"When Proteus gives up Silvia after being reproached by Valentine and then asks forgiveness, he is implicitly abandoning the lesser love (female) for the greater (male), and what can Valentine do but reciprocate and hand the lesser love back?

"Fortunately for heterosexual sensibilities, this does not happen. When Valentine makes his offer, "Sebastian" swoons. Her true identity is discovered and the repentant Proteus is thus reunited with his ever true Julia [who forgives him completely]."

An interesting interpretation of the play, dontcha think? I, for one, would be curious to see a production that explored that possibility. But then what of the women's reactions? Modern sensibilities insist on an explanation for their acceptance of the men's behaviour. I challenge future actresses of Julia and Silvia to seek a motivation that makes sense to them, and to have such craft as to make that motivation clear to the audience. So no longer will the audience have to leave saying, "she forgave him too easily."

Labels: books and literature, film, theatre