ANNALISA’S INTERPRETATION OF SHAKESPEARE’S “BLUNDER”. I went with Annalisa to see Two Gentlemen of Verona on the last night. Annalisa chose not to read the play beforehand. She had no difficulty with the alleged “blunder”. The line that is considered a “blunder” by Shakespeare is what Valentine says to Proteus when he forgives Proteus: “All that was mine in Silvia I give thee”. Annalisa understood the line when she heard it to mean: “I will give you [Proteus} the same love that I give Sylvia”. She persuaded me afterward that this is the better reading of the line and that the reading fits better with the theme of the play—the conflict between ideal friendship between men and heterosexual love.
I looked up the line on Google and found this wikipedia entry which has a lengthy discussion of what it calls “[p]erhaps the most critically discussed issue in the play”. The entry suggests that a majority of the critics seem to agree that Shakespeare blundered, but that there is a minority of modern critics who have adopted Annalisa’s reading.