Wherefore Verona in the Two Gentlemen of Verona‪?‬

The greatest variety in the titles of Shakespeare's plays can be found in the comedies: one, for example, is a complete sentence, All's Well That Ends Well; one indicates the genre, The Comedy of Errors. Unlike the histories, named for the ruling sovereign, and the tragedies, named for the principal character, the comedies never have the proper name of a character in the title. The one exception would be Cymbeline, but the Folio groups this play with the tragedies. Pericles, another potential exception, the Folio does not even include. Three of the comedies indicate location in their titles: The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Typically, the titles of histories and tragedies do not specify location, with the notable exception of Timon of Athens. Thomas Berger has ruminated on Shakespeare's titles, making astute observations about the changing titles from quarto texts to the Folio, especially the histories. As Berger succinctly states, "Titles matter. Titles matter a lot." (1) But we have to ask: these titles matter to whom, and how? We have no way of knowing, of course, how or what Shakespeare thought about his plays' titles. Berger also observes, "If I have fewer 'problems' with the titles of Shakespeare's comedies and tragedies, it is not because the problems are fewer or absent; if anything, the problems are less apparent, more complex." (2) Building on this "less apparent" dimension of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, this essay contends that the play has an inappropriate title, based on a faulty location.