SOURCE: Introduction to The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 1-50.

In the following excerpt, Schlueter provides an overview of The Two Gentlemen of Verona and examines the sources and genres that Shakespeare drew on to create the play.

Themes and Criticism

With The Two Gentlemen of Verona Shakespeare, for the first time, turned to the matter and motifs of romance, making them the vehicle of his comedy. Since similar material would become the basis of his later and more appreciated comedies, his earlier venture has tended to be misjudged. Criticism of the play has too often been based on the assumption that the author intended, or should have intended, to write something like Twelfth Night or As You Like It but, being young and newly apprenticed to the playwright's trade, had not known how to achieve this and had therefore failed. Attempts to reconstruct a...