Two Gentlemen of Verona
William Shakespeare is an interesting character that just happened to be one of the best play writes of not only his time, but even today. He was born in the year 1564 and died in 1616. Though there are not many records of his personal life, from what there is, he lived a sort of scandalize life. Moving to London and leaving his wife, Anne Hathaway, behind to write plays, act, and, it is said, have affairs with men and women. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". Some people say that his earlier works were not so well written as his later plays, but he wrote about 38 plays in total and is said to have changed not only theater by his influences in other author's, but the English language as well. Though he wrote many good plays, one of his earlier plays, “Two Gentlemen of Verona” will be discussed in greater detail in this essay. Shakespeare, did many things for the first time in theater and his plays that no other other had done before him. One of his most obvious achievements include language. It is said that he had created about over 1700 of our common words by changing nouns into verbs, changing verbs into adjectives, connecting words never before used together, adding prefixes and suffixes, and making up words that are completely original. Language is a big part of theater. In many plays, as well as life, people play with worlds and sentence structures to portray many different types of emotions. In Two Gentlemen of Verona, many scenes were funnier because of the wordplay they used. For example, in Act III scene i. Speed, the servant of the main character Valentine, had asked Launce, the servant of Proteus, “How now Signior Launce, what news with your mastership?” Launce replied with, “With my mastership? Why, it is at sea.” Like many other parts in the book, this dialogue shows Shakespeare creativeness and wordplay. When Valentine asks about the “mastership” what he really is talking about is Proteus because he is Launce's