Shakespeare For Beginners

Brandon Toropov, Joe Lee

• Publisher: For Beginners
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9781934389294
• eBook ISBN: 9781939994226
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Shakespeare Drama
• Index: Literature

Despite the reshifting of values that has affected every aspect of life in the 21st century, William Shakespeare still stands as the greatest writer the English language has ever produced. Even so, many people have never read him. If you have never read “the Bard”—or if you’ve tried and given up in frustration—you need Shakespeare For Beginners.

Author Brandon Toropov opens with the observation that Shakespeare’s genius is not in his (or England’s) history, it’s in his words, most notably, his plays—in his brilliant stories, unforgettable characters, and the impossible beauty of his language. So, Shakespeare For Beginners skips the historical foreplay and goes straight to Shakespeare’s plays. The book offers clear, concise descriptions and plot summaries of each play; it lists key phrases and important themes, explains the main ideas behind each work and features excerpt of important passages (with explanatory notes on tough words.) And it is the only ‘entry level’ book available outside Great Britain that covers all of Shakespeare’s plays. 

HERE LIES THE SCENE ?

Verona and Milan, and a forest close to Mantua.

HAT HAPPENS?

Two friends, Valentine and Proteus, the gentlemen of the title, prepare to take their leave of each other. Valentine is bound for the court of the Duke of Milan; Proteus, in love with Julia, will stay in Verona in hopes of winning her affections. Upon arriving in Milan, Valentine meets and falls in love with Silvia, the Duke’s daughter. Proteus, having himself been ordered to Milan by his father, learns from Valentine that he (Valentine) and Silvia, are planning to elope — inasmuch as the Duke wishes Silvia to wed the wealthy dolt Thurio. Valentine asks for his friend’s help in arranging things. The problem: Proteus has fallen instantly in love with Silvia. Julia, still in Verona and unaware of Proteus’s newfound passion in Milan, leaves disguised as a boy, hoping to find him Proteus tells the Duke of Milan about Valentine’s plan to escape with Silvia and get married. Valentine is banished. Proteus pretends to help Thurio win the affections of Silvia. A band of outlaws captures Valentine and names him as their leader. Julia arrives, in disguise, from Verona. After surmising what Proteus is up to, she wins a place in his service by pretending to be a boy. Julia, acting as Proteus’s page, is sent to bestow a gift on Silvia — a ring that Julia had given to Proteus. Silvia refuses it. Silvia makes her escape from Milan and sets out to join Valentine. She is apprehended by members of the wandering band of outlaws, but Proteus and his “page” rescue her. Proteus proves himself once and for all to be a cad and a bounder by preparing to force himself on Silvia, but Valentine, who has been hiding himself nearby, intervenes. In one of the strangest moments in all of Shakespeare, Valentine accepts his friend’s apology, then offers him his beloved, Silvia. Julia, disguised as the page, swoons. Thanks to a ring she is wearing, her true identity is discovered. She, too, forgives Proteus for no discernable reason. The Duke materializes, having been taken prisoner by the forest outlaws. He grants a pardon to anyone in need of one and gives his blessing to the love of Valentine and Silvia. Both couples live happily ever after.

HAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?

ome scholars feel The Two Gentlemen of Verona to be a strong candidate as Shakespeare’s first piece of professional playwriting. If it isn’t the Bard’s first effort, it is certainly one of his earliest pieces of dramatic work, and it shows. Although certain elements of the play are echoed in other memorable comedies of his — the potentially all-consuming nature of love, the constancy of young women in love when compared to the young men who pursue them, the device of an ingenue’s assuming the guise of a young boy — these are not handled with quite the same poise and precision as elsewhere. Truth be told, the play has all the hallmarks of an apprentice work. The Two Gentlemen of Verona, although it boasts high moments from such characters as the loving Julia and the plain-spoken clown Launce, is neither a particularly strong piece of writing nor a very funny comedy. It’s generally considered an early foray into areas that would be traveled more profitably later in the writer’s career.

I have no other but a woman’s reason: I think him so, because I think him so. (I, ii)

O hateful hands, to tear such loving words! Injurious wasps, to feed on such sweet honey, And kill the bees that yield it with your stings! (I, ii)

Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold, And that I love him not as I was wont: O, but I love his lady too too much, And that’s the reason I love him so little. (II, iv)

Time is the nurse and breeder of all good.(III, i)

I’ll force thee yield to my desire! (V, iv)

All that was mine in Silvia I give thee. (V, iv)

HE CRITICS’ CORNER

“It is the general opinion that (The Two Gentlemen of Verona) abounds with weeds, and there is no one, I think, will deny, who peruses it with attention, that it is adorned with several poetical flowers such as the hand of a Shakespeare alone could have raised.” (Benjamin Victor)

“In this play there is a strange mixture of knowledge and ignorance of care and negligence.” (Samuel Johnson)

“When it is true to itself the comedy insists on both the importance and the relativity of love.” (Anne Barton)

OME COOL THINGS ABOUT

THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

5: Launce’s scenes may have been added on after a preliminary draft of the play was completed.

4: Julia’s assumption of a male disguise is a device that appears in a number of the later comedies; since the ingenue roles were played by boys on the Elizabethan stage, there must have been an air of realism to the “disguise”!

3: The play features a number of strange inconsistencies: sea voyages to towns that shouldn’t require them, varying titles for Silvia’s father (Duke? Emperor?), and an unsettling lack of certainty about the settings of some of the scenes.

2: The sublime worthiness of true friendship between two men, and the superiority of that friendship to the love between a man and a woman, was a common theme in the literature of Elizabethan England. Maybe the bizzarre ending was a little less bizzarre to Shakespeare’s audience than it is to us. Then again, maybe not.

1: This play, which scholars estimate was written and performed in the early 1590’s, was not published until the First Folio of 1623. By all indications, it was not a great popular success.

HERE LIES THE SCENE?

Fifteenth-century England and France

HAT HAPPENS?

PART ONE:

The triumphant conquerer Henry V has died; his youthful successor, Henry VI, assumes the throne. The disputed English holdings in France are reported lost. The Earl of Salisbury, ...

Table of contents

• Coverpage
• Titlepage
• Copyright
• Contents
• Who Is Shakespeare?
• The Plays
• The Poems
• Bibliography
• Cast of Characters