The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Comedy of Errors, The
COMEDY OF ERRORS, The. This, Shakespeare's shortest play, is certainly one of his earliest. Conservative modern critics are inclined to fix upon 1591 as the probable date of composition and to place it second only to ‘Love’s Labour's Lost' in the order of the poet's independent works. To the general reader the comedy is chiefly known as Shakespeare's solitary effort at direct imitation of a classic model; and the neglect it suffers may be due to the mistaken notion that it is no more than a free rendering of the ‘Menæchmi’ of Plautus. The idea of the indistinguishable Antipholus twins and the rough pattern of their adventures, to be sure, come from the ‘Menæchmi,’ and certain other points from a second Plautine play, the ‘Amphitruo’ — notably the situation in Act III, scene I, where the true master and his slave are shut out of their house while their doubles revel within. Both in plot, however, and in development the Shakespearean play invents more than it borrows, and it deserves respect as an instance of the same kind of treatment of sources which marks the poet's maturest work. Short as it is, ‘The Comedy of Errors’ is vastly richer and more varied than the ‘Menæchmi.’ The clever notion of duplicating the twin Antipholi by twin servants (the Dromios) trebles the opportunity for mirthful misunderstanding; while the creation of the pathetic figures of the old father and mother and the charming sister-in-law, Luciana, introduces a depth of human feeling and a romantic atmosphere entirely alien to Plautus. The reader of ‘The Comedy of Errors’ will find many suggestions of later plays. Compare the old father Ægeon with Egeus in ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream’; the business of the chain with the trouble over the ring in ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ and note particularly the forecast of ‘Twelfth Night’ in the story of the escape of the shipwrecked twins, their subsequent confusion and the episode of the supposed madman bound and laid in a dark room. An English translation of the ‘Menæchmi’ was printed in 1595 and may conceivably have been accessible to Shakespeare in manuscript at an earlier date. It seems more likely that he got his general knowledge of this play as well as of the untranslated ‘Amphitruo’ while at school, where Plautus was often a regular subject of study. For the influence of Plautus on English drama in the 16th century, consult the introduction to M. W. Wallace's edition of ‘The Birth of Hercules’ (Chicago 1903). The 1595 translation of the ‘Menæchmi,’ with parallel Latin text and introduction, has been edited by W. H. D. Rouse in the ‘Shakespeare Classics Series’ (New York 1912).