Seven Ages

Comedy · c. 1594

Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona

Very likely Shakespeare’s first play: two friends, one girl disguised as a page, one outrageous final-scene forgiveness, and one scene-stealing dog.

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By the Seven Ages editors2 min read

The machinery of the later comedies — cross-dressed heroines, love versus friendship, journeys to greener worlds — is all here in first draft.

It is slight, and the ending has troubled everyone since roughly 1594, but Launce’s monologues to his dog Crab are genuinely funny and Julia is a prototype worth meeting. Best read as the seed catalogue for everything that flowered later.

Two Gentlemen of Verona on screen

1The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1983)

TV film

BBC Television Shakespeare

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Mark it in your record when you finish — one seat, kept for decades.

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