ABSTRACT
Shakespeare based his story of the two young Italianate courtiers on English, Spanish, French, and Italian sources. Diego de Montemayor's Diana is considered as a primary source of Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen. Since The Two Gentlemen of Verona includes Italianate lazzi, commedia dell'arte may have supplemented literary sources. Shakespeare prioritized Proteus and Valentine's friendship over their love for their ladies in The Two Gentlemen. Similar to his practice in The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare contained the clown's improvisational tendency by allowing for Launce's extended lazzi in jig-like set pieces at the beginning and ending of scenes of The Two Gentlemen. Proteus and Thurio speak in fourteeners popular in the mid-to-late 1500s and share seven-beat lines akin to the sixteenth-century barzeleta of the Venetian buffone. La Mama ETC, in association with Artemis & The Wild Things, presented a commedia dell'arte scenario of The Two Gentlemen of Verona at The Club in New York on 26 November 2007.
