One of Shakespeare's earliest plays (its first recorded performance was in December 1594), The Comedy of Errors has often been dismissed as a mere farce, unrepresentative of the efforts the playwright's later works. Although Errors may contain some farcical elements, it is a complex and layered work that draws on and reinterprets Plautine comedy. Shakespeare combines aspects of these Latin works with biblical source material, primarily the Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline Epistle. to the Ephesians.Although Menaechmi is the most often cited authoritative source for Errors, Plautus' Amphitrue has also influenced it, as Shakespeare's treatment of identity and its fragility derives from the latter work There are many other structural and thematic resonances between the three texts: each of the plays, to varying degrees, addresses issues of identity, violence and slavery, while showing an acute awareness of aspects of performativity, in particular of the figure of the playwright and the role of the audience. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The structural similarities between the Comedy of Errors and Plautus' Menaechmi and Amphitruo are quite clear. In addition to adopting the traditional five-act structure, Shakespeare creates divisions of acts that respect the Evantian and Donatian definitions of the comic structure (prologue, epitasis, protasis, catastrophe) and draws on the classic stock of characters: the senex, the servus, parasitus, matron and meretrix. Of course, this does not mean that Shakespeare is a slavish imitator of all of Plautine's concepts. While both plays of Roman origin for Errors begin with a formal prologue, separate from the first act, Errors instead launches immediately into the first act. This does not, however, constitute an abandonment of the essential function of the prologue. Egeon's painful tale provides the spectator with the appropriate background to the work, which begins in medias res, thus satisfying the needs of the narrative which constitute the first element of the Evantian and Donatian comic structure. That said, Shakespeare's prologue differs greatly from its Plautine counterparts. It is much more integrated with the work as a whole, and is framed by the revelation of Aegeon's imprisonment in Ephesus and the Duke's decree that: ...if any born Syracusan comes to the bay of Ephesus, he dies, his goods are confiscated to Duke's disposition, unless a thousand marks be paid, to end the sentence and redeem him. The gravity of Egeon's plight, and the tragic potential of the play, are made even more poignant by the senex's constant pain. In direct contrast, Menaechmi's prologue is witty, urban and very informal. The speaker not only slyly mocks the audience (“Please listen with all your attention span; / I will say it in as few words as I can” ), but strikes a rather cutting jab at other Roman comic playwrights, who proudly boast of their authenticity and “their faithfulness to Greek models, a practice which evidently had a certain snobbish appeal”. Ironically, this shot serves as a basis for the playwright to assert his authenticity and dramatic authority: I reveal the real places when I talk to you. This story is Greek, but to be precise, it is not Athenian, it is Sicilian, in fact. (10-12). Plautus' positioning of the prologue speaker is vitally important when considering the very close dynamic that exists between the playwright, the actors, his agents, and the audience. The show's numerous digressions, while not always aimed directly at the audience, contributecertainly to create a sense of complicity and involvement of the public. This feeling is accentuated later in the show (perhaps due to the need to maintain the audience's attention, which may be waning) with observations directed specifically at the spectators, such as Cylindrus' comment regarding Menechmus's embarrassed behavior in front of the audience. He often behaves like this with me, he jokes. It can be very funny if his wife is gone. (317-318), Penicolo disdained The wine has been drunk, the parasite has been left out in the cold. No Hercules, I am not myself if I don't take revenge, if I don't curse him with style. Look at me now, and Menaechmus II's appeal for public silence: ...everyone, please, if that old man returns, please don't tell him which route I took to escape. (879-880). The numerous songs addressed to the spectators (such as that of the staggering father-in-law in lines 753-774) can only strengthen this bond. In this way, Amphitruo's prologue shows the same concern for audience involvement and influence. Disguised as a servant Sosia, Mercurio tells the assembly his intent to "explain the plot underlying / This tragedy". It is this reference to the tragedy that signals the beginning of a close relationship between author/actor and spectator. Seeing the audience's collective frown at the mention of the tragedy, Mercury adopts a conciliatory tone, reminding the audience "you know I'm God / And soon I can change it" (AMP: 260), and offering to "make / These very lines be a comedy ” (AMP: 260). By flattering (more likely leading) the audience, Mercury finds a middle ground “Ah, yes; I know your mind: and I will make it a tragicomedy: for it is not right to make a comedy in which kings and gods they're all comedy. But since a slave is involved, I'll make it a tragicomedy for you (AMP: 261) To perpetuate the illusion of the audience's control over the drama unfolding before them, it is Jupiter's command that " There will be investigators, who will see if any actor has caused men to applaud himself, or prevent anyone else from receiving "his applause, who will flay his robe and cut him to pieces with a scourge." (AMP : 261) This not only gives the spectator the feeling of power over the playwright and the actor (he/she may refuse to support the action by holding back applause), but underlines the importance of theater in Roman society, further highlighted by Commentary of Mercury that only last year Jupiter “came and made use” (AMP: 232) of the actors who invoked him on stage. The final indication of the audience's privileged position in Amphitruo is the decision of Mercury and Jupiter to bear signs that will signal their true identity and distinguish them from those whose forms they have taken... that you may distinguish us among us I will wear a feather on my hat: while with the same intent My father wears a tassel under his: Amphitryon shall not have one: but these signs None will see, but you alone. (AMP: 263) Of course, this position of knowledge is also afforded to the Shakespearean audience, but to a much lesser extent, especially when considering Mercury's later remarks which ensure that the viewer is aware of Jupiter's guarantee that the rift in the Amphitryon marriage /Alcmene will resolve itself. not be irreparable. In The Comedy of Errors, the only guarantees we have that the play will end happily are the word "Comedy" in the title, and the romantic convention of shipwreck that Shakespeare inserts into Egeon's narratio, and which we will find later in his other comedies about exchanges of identity, Twelfth Night. Although the public's participatory relationship with the Commedia degli Errori is decidedly less significant than that existing in Plautino's works, this does notresults in a lack of power on the part of the playwright. Indeed, in a play characterized by such an intricate and complex plot, with so many opportunities for confusion for the spectator, the playwright must be an authoritative presence. It is this assumption that informs Jonathan Crewe's "God or The Good Physician: The Rational Playwright in The Comedy of Errors" (although we may not necessarily agree with Crewe's view that "the arbitrariness of conventions inherited from work and the farcical character of the comedy of mistaken identity can be redeemed to some extent”). anticipates the entire course of the play, or as a 'good doctor', who works through comic conventions to eliminate melancholy, impart self-knowledge, and exorcise psychic demons. After careful consideration of the play, it becomes clear that the playwright is both god and doctor, has a double identity. His divinity, however, is not the true divinity. In an almost palimpsestic work, which draws on Plautine, Pauline and Renaissance thought, the playwright becomes the good doctor, ""not so much a controlling figure as a figure who mediates between a given dramatic legacy and its contemporary audience." While Crewe draws the conclusion that the playwright oscillates between the role of God and that of Good Doctor, it is perhaps more accurate to infer that the playwright is a minor deity, whose character is both healing/meditative and divine (which has profound consequences ). for an audience with the illusion of influence): …the playwright's ability to manipulate and control appearances in the professional theater, an ability of which even privileged spectators ultimately become victims, has been bestowed upon him as a quasi-divinity […. ] The masterful control of the play (especially when it seems that everything is out of control), together with the coup de theater of the ending, establish the playwright as a figure of divine omnipotence. One of Crewe's arguments for the playwright's lack of supreme divinity is that he “stops short of any original act of creation.” While it is undeniably true that the structural/technical similarities between The Comedy of Errors and Plautus' Menaechmi and Amphitruus extend to Shakespeare's adoption of key classical figures (the senex Egeon, the matron Hadrian, the unnamed meretrix), it is equally true and clear that Shakespeare does not limit his dramatis personae to this rather meager allowance. Just as in Amphitruo, the servant Sosia is doubled by Mercury-as-Sosia, Shakespeare adds another Dromio. The work also includes the presence of an officer, jailer, messenger, of the Duke of Ephesus himself, merchant (Balthasar) and goldsmith (Angelo). This greater proliferation of characters is a deliberate attempt on Shakespeare's part, not only to enrich the conventional cliché of "mistaken identity", but to amplify the feelings of bewilderment and confusion by which both Antipholes are so obviously assailed. Shakespeare "nearly triples the episodes of error from seventeen [in Plautus' Menaechmi to fifty." of errors. Having adopted the trope of two masters and two servants from Amphitruo, Shakespeare also proceeds to double the number of female characters found in Menaechmi. The unmarried Luciana serves as a foil for Adriana, whose entire identity hinges on her status as wife, and the addition of Aemilia/the abbess makes Aegeon's grief more acute, consequently making the final reunion much more symmetrical (and introducing the Oedipal dimension into his life). fight with Adriana for Antipholus). But the notion of duplicity is also an extremely linguistic elementsignificant in the work. The irony of the characters' unconscious doublespeak (a result of identity confusion) is brilliantly portrayed by Shakespeare's selective use of couplets, the two most significant examples of this technique. (before the final rediscovery) occur in acts two and three. Adriana and Luciana's discussion of the wife's submission in marriage constitutes the first of these examples. The entire scene, Dromio's interruption, is conducted in couplets, emphasizing their relationship as brothers, the two halves of a biological couple, as well as their “double” (contradictory nature) Luciana is not married but preaches the submission of wife, while Adriana is married and resents her husband's freedom. The notion of mating and duplicity is also evident in Antipholus of Syracuse's declaration of love to Luciana: the abab rhyme scheme of the early, extended speeches transforms into the couplet form aabb (III.ii.53-70). While adding to the dramatic tension of this scene, the couplets also highlight Antipholus's perceived duplicity as false towards his wife approaching his sister and his physical duplicity of Antipholus of Ephesus. This technique also has a highly practical purpose, as Wolfgang Riehle observes: "the frequent use of couplets in the early parts of the work indirectly foreshadows the final reunion of the twin pairs". achieved only thanks to many errors, "mistakes of identity, resolved through recognition". Loss of identity is an essential part of the Comedy of Errors and is defined predominantly in terms of ownership and possession. This very mercantile view of the self (subtly implied in the figure of the courtesan) is personified in Antipholus of Ephesus, whose identity (like that of the other men of Ephesus) “is equivalent to reputation, which is supported by the ability to pay cash at the same time specified." Setting aside, for the moment, the fiscal component of Ephesian male identity, we need to look more closely at the meaning of reputation. When Antipholus finds himself locked out of his house, he is dissuaded from his first impulse ("Well, I'll break in " III.i.80) by Balthasar, who claims that this impatient course of action will damage his position in the community: "If with a strong hand you offer to break in now upon the agitated course of the day, a vulgar comment will be made of it and that supposed by the common defeat against your still unjust esteem that may come in with foul intrusion and dwell upon your grave when you are dead. ”(III.i.98-104)The validity of this reasoning is confirmed by Antipholus's acquiescence. His concern for his good name is also alluded to when talking about the “girl with the excellent speech#8221; (III.i.109). Antipholus makes sure to point out that his impending trip to the Porpentine is the direct result of his wife's negligence, and that his suspicions of a previous infidelity were unfounded: ...I will depart in silence And despite the cheerfulness I intend to be cheerful I know a girl of excellent speech... We will have dinner there. This woman of whom I speak, my wife (but, I protest, without merit) has often reproached me. (III.i.107-113) It is also in this scene that we hear once again about the carcanet Antipholus who commissioned an object from Angelo the goldsmith that represents the way in which time “becomes the organizing principle of the plot”. It is also symbolic of Shakespeare's problematization of identity: the gold chain must be paid for by five o'clock, otherwise the law will inevitably come into action... as this monetarized time becomes more active in structuring the plot, it too contributes to the surreptitious subversion of the solidity of identity. Not only is the question no longer who you are and whether you can pay (which will re-establish who you are), but correlatively whether you canpay within a set time. This makes identity (reputation) dependent on external factors over which even those who are nominally powerful have no control. Perhaps one of the most disturbing things about the disintegration of Antipholus of Ephesus's identity is that it is not (as noted above) affected by any action. or inertia on his part. The extreme limit of self-destructive anger he shows in IV.iv.95-109 (“With these nails I will tear out these eyes”) is an attempt to overcome this impotence. Antipholus tries to gain some degree of control over his tormented self. Likewise, when Adriana is convinced of Antipholus' adultery, her first instinct is self-annihilation “Since my beauty cannot please his eye, I will mourn what remains, and crying I will die!” (II.i.112-113). The disintegration of identity is therefore linked to violence. While the violence connected to Antipholus and Hadrian's identity crises is generally self-directed, they actively exert brutally physical force on the Dromio twins (whose identity problem is characterized by questions of transformation and transformation). usurpation). The first time we meet Dromio of Ephesus, he is threatened with beatings (“answer me or I will break that merry candle of yours” I.ii.77-79) and then receives a beating for his refusal/inability to tell Antipholus of Syracuse the place where where his gold was located. This is, however, one of the less difficult incidents. Dromio E's metaphorization of the skin as parchment written with the ink of strokes (III.i.13) is a disturbing reminder of his status as a slave, sold by his parents at birth. This metaphor also has a surprising resemblance to the branding of slaves of which Maurice Hunt, quoting Vasco de Quiroga, writes in his “Slavery, English Servitude, and The Comedy of Errors”: “in their flesh are imprinted the initials of the names of those who are subsequently its owners…so that the faces of these men who were created in the image of God have, because of our sins, been turned into paper.” In one play thus far, Shakespeare has ensured that, “in the Dromios' repeated pleas to the Antipholus twins to hold their hands 'for God's sake,' [the] play reproduces the tension […] between the injustice of slavery and the Christian precept. " A lesser known fact is England's implementation of the enslavement of its citizens. The Edwardian Vagrancy Act of 1547 and the Vagrancy Act of 1572 respectively “made branding and slavery the punishment for robust begging [and allowed] justices of the peace [to] banish incorrigible scoundrels from England or condemn them to endless servitude in galleys.” Although Hunt distinguishes between slavery and servitude, the distinction is really only nominal, given the terrible working conditions of English servants during the Elizabethan period. Shakespeare's determination to represent this is even clearer if we compare his treatment of the Dromio twins with that of the Plautine slaves in Menaechmi and. Amphitruus. Although Messenius is aware that his physical well-being depends on his obedience, he enjoys a quite satisfactory relationship with Menaechmus Sosicles, who often directly eliminates the possibility of his mistake and subsequent punishment: "If I may keep the money, it's better for both of us." . / Then you will not be able to make mistakes and I will not be able to scold you." (270-271). Amphitruus' double is beaten, not at the hands of his master, but at the hands of the god Mercury, who pretends to be his unfortunate victim. The most important difference However, what stands between Shakespearean and Plautine treatment of slavery is that the Dromios, unlike Messenius, are not freed at the conclusion of the play, and the abuse is much more frequent. This is best expressed by Dromio of Ephesus, who has the dubious distinction, 1969.