The reviews will never end!
9. Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona
Proteus and Valentine, the eponymous two gentlemen, are best friends. Valentine sets out on a journey to Milan, but Proteus is happy to remain where he is, since he’s recently fallen in love with Julia. His father, however, wants him to see the world and sends him to Milan as well. Meanwhile, Valentine has fallen in love with Sylvia, the Duke of Milan’s daughter - but when Proteus gets to Milan and sees her, he falls in love with her too! Banishment, cross-dressing, and bumbling clowns - all the usual Shakespearean fun - help to sort out the tangled lovers in a traditional (though implausible) comic ending.
I enjoyed this play quite a lot, although the scholarly introduction called it an immature work (it’s one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays). You can definitely see traces of the characters and plot devices that Shakespeare used in later plays - Julia, for example, reminds me a lot of Rosalind from As You Like It - but Two Gentlemen of Verona is enjoyable on its own merits. There are some very witty exchanges in the text, but they’re brief enough that the plot doesn’t lose its intensity. The main characters (except for fickle Proteus) are all likeable, and I especially enjoyed the interactions between Julia and her maid Lucetta. There’s a band of outlaws, just for fun - and the moral of the story is, “Bros before hos.” Ah, Shakespeare, forever timeless…
(Cross-posted to 50bookchallenge, books, and 100ormorebooks.)
Currently reading The Temptation of the Night Jasmine by Lauren Willig. I've been saving it. *grin*