ABSTRACT
The Two Gentlemen of Verona are what their youth and courtly upbringing predispose them to be—bookish. Appropriately, the word book appears in their opening conversation when Proteus, contemplating the dangers his friend may encounter on a journey, pledges, “I will be thy beadsman,” and Valentine replies, “And on a love-book pray for my success?” (I.i.18-19). 1 The expression love-book anticipates the conjunction of love with reading and writing that characterizes the entire play. This conjunction is apparent in the first scene when, the conversation having turned to love, both Proteus and Valentine solemnly cite what “writers say.” It is also apparent when the two gentlemen, each having fallen in love, become writers themselves. Their writing takes the form of letters to their ladies, and those letters in turn beget additional letters as the initial talk about what writers say gives way to a blizzard of paper. No other Shakespearean comedy contains so many letters; no other devotes so many scenes to the composition, delivery, and reception of love letters.
