Shakespeares Comedy of Errors and Plautus Menaechmi and Amphitruo Ess

Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors and Plautus' Menaechmi and Amphitruo One of Shakespeare's earliest plays (its first recorded performance in December 1594), The Comedy of Errors has frequently been dismissed as pure farce, unrepresentative of the playwright's later efforts. While Errors may very well contain farcical elements, it is a complex, layered work that draws upon and reinterprets Plautine comedy. Shakespeare combines aspects of these Latin plays with biblical source material, chiefly the Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline Epistle to the Ephesians. While Menaechmi is the most frequently cited classical source for Errors, Plautus' Amphitruo is just as relevant an influence; Shakespeare's treatment of identity and its fragility is derived from this latter work. Of course, there are many other structural and thematic resonances between the three texts: each of the plays, to varying degrees, deal with the issues of identity, violence and slavery, while displaying a keen awareness of aspects of performativity, specifically the figure of the p laywright, and the role of the audience. The structural similarities between Comedy of Errors and Plautus' Menaechmi and Amphitruo are quite clear. In addition to adopting the traditional five-act structure, Shakespeare creates act divisions which comply with the Evanthian and Donatian definitions of comic structure (prologue, epitasis, protasis, catastrophe), and draws upon the classical stock of characters: the senex, servus, parasitus, matrona and meretrix. Of course, this does not mean that Shakespeare is a slavish imitator of all things Plautine. While both of the Roman source plays for Errors begin with a formal prologue, set apart from the first act, Errors instead laun... ...s.): Plautus: Five of his Plays, London: Arthur L. Humphreys, 1914. Crewe, Jonathan V.: "God or The Good Physician: The Rational Playwright in The Comedy of Errors, in Genre, XV (1/2), 1982, pp. 203-223. Dorsch, T.S (ed.): The Comedy of Errors, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Hall, Jonathan: Anxious Pleasures: Shakespearean Comedy and the Nation-State, London: Associated University Presses, 1995 Hunt, Maurice: "Slavery, English Servitude, and The Comedy of Errors," in English Literary Renaissance, 27(1): 31-55, Winter 1997. Miola, Robert S.: Shakespeare and Clasical Comedy: The Influence of Plautus and Terence, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Riehle, Wolfgang: Shakespeare, Plautus and the Humanist Tradition, Cambridge: D.S Brewer, 1990. Segal, Erich (trans.): Plautus: Three Comedies, New York and London: Harper and Row, 1969.