3 Review(s)

The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. In this second edition of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Kurt Schlueter approaches Shakespeare's early comedy as a parody of two types of Renaissance educational fiction: the love-quest story and the test-of-friendship story, which in combination show high-flown human ideals as incompatible with each other and with human nature. Since the first known production at David Garrick's Drury Lane Theatre, the play has tempted major directors and actors, though changing conceptions of the play often fail to recognise its subversive impetus. This updated edition includes a new introductory section by Lucy Munro on recent stage and critical interpretations, bringing the thoroughly researched, illustrated performance history up to date.