This early experimental play illuminates the comic vision that informs all Shakespeare's later successes including his last great plays. Two pairs of lovers are forcibly parted and human fickleness is contrasted with constantT, reality with illusion, and the bonds of friendship with those of sexual attraction. The serious elements of Romance are fused with satire and burlesque as The Two Gentlemen of Verona examines the importance of identity with lucid charm and hilarious comedy.

THERE IS NO EVIDENCE that The Two Gentlemen of Verona was ever performed before the Restoration, but scholars agree that it was probably written in 1592-93. It appears in the 1623 folio. Though often discredited for its lack of imaginative and emotional range, the play is in many ways an admirable example of Shakespeare"s prentice wore A player himself, Shakespeare was an able judge of public taste, and in The Two Gentlemen of Verona he exploits a variety of popular dramatic elements, concentrating on the technical problems specifically inherent in Romance in the same experimental manner that he used to examine other aspects of comedy in early plays such as The Comedy of Errors (1593), and The Taming of the Shrew and Love"s Labours lost(both 1594)……