Characters in Romeo and Juliet he is given a direct connection to his brother. Although he has a very small role in Shakespeare's play, earlier versions of the story gave him no role or mention at all. In fact, they gave even Mercutio a very minor role. Shakespeare was the first English dramatist to use the name "Valentine" on stage, in his earlier plays, "Titus Andronicus" and "The Two Gentlemen of Verona". In "Titus", Valentine plays a minor role, but in "Two Gentlemen", he is one of the title characters. Incidentally, the Valentine of "Two Gentlemen" borrows heavily from Arthur Brooke's Romeus in "The Tragical
Characters of Shakespear's Plays play is an exact transcript of what might be supposed to have taken place at the court of Denmark [...]." In "Troilus and Cressida", by a comparison with Chaucer's method of depicting character, he explains in detail how Shakespeare's idea of "character" is not fixed, and Shakespeare shows the characters not only by their own behaviour but as they view and react to one another. Likewise, Shakespeare's attention was not merely to habitual outward behaviour, but to the most transitory, fleeting inward impressions. "Shakespear exhibited [...] not only what things are in themselves, but whatever they might seem to be,