SOURCE: “Figure, Place, and the End of The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” in Style, Vol. 23, No. 3, Fall 1989, pp. 405-29.

In the essay that follows, Maurer demonstrates that a rhetorical relationship exists between the inconsistencies within The Two Gentlemen of Verona and the play's ending.

After dinner read “Two Gentlemen of Verona”. … That play disgusted me more than ever in the final scene, where Valentine, on Proteus's mere begging pardon, when he has no longer any hope of gaining his ends, says: “All that was mine in Silvia, I give thee!” Silvia standing by.

Cross, ed., George Eliot's Life, 1:273-74

Speed. Mr. Pope, by mine honesty, welcome to Padua. Alex. Pope. Forswear not thyself, sweet youth, for this is not Padua. 

One big and many little things bother readers about The Two Gentlemen of Verona. The play's ending raises to a crucial level a pervasive uneasiness about the way...