Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Taking a Break for the Bard

Since it's on my book list as a periodical read and the Bard's birthday is believed to be today, I'm going to interrupt my reading list with a play. The first in the second edition of the Wells and Taylor Complete Works of Shakespeare: The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

The play's summary makes it sound like most other plays of the 16th and 17th centuries. It's framed as a story of love and youth and friendship, themes that resound from John Lyly's Gallathea to Shakespeare's own The Tempest. The first act certainly makes it seem so, too, as we follow Valentine and Proteus during their parting and seemingly inevitable reunion.

Although the summary also warns that this play shows some heavy experimentation and the caution of an early attempt at playwriting, I'm still hopeful that Sylvia, the love interest, will be an incredible character. She looks like a major player in act two, so we'll soon see about her.

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