The Comedy of Errors

William Shakespeare

Comedy, Classic, Play

This one really says it all in the title. A lot of errors were made by the characters and it was definitely a comedy.

While Much Ado About Nothing still reigns supreme (in my opinion) among Shakespeare’s works The Comedy of Errors is certainly one I will read again. In the introduction this is listed as his one farcical play.

There is a brief list of the characters to give us an idea of who the players are before we begin to read. The play opens with a merchant explaining his arrival to a new country, to a Duke threatening to execute him, in the hopes of saving his own life. Ægeon tells the Duke a tale of his wife giving birth to twin sons and another woman at the same time giving birth to twin sons. He and his wife, Æmilia purchased the second set of twins to attend to their own sons. There was a shipwreck that tore the family in half. The mother with one son and one slave and the father with one son and one slave, each boy being given the same name as his twin. The masters are both Antipholus and the slaves are both Dromio.

As you may imagine this is the basis for all manner of mistaken identity issues which occur as the story unfolds. We see from each character’s own perspective as each is either identified as the wrong person or identifies another character incorrectly. One of the masters is married and one is not. The married brother lives in the town that is our backdrop, and the other is newly arrived. Of course there are many instances in which the truth could have come to light more swiftly but true to form Shakespeare keeps each and every one of his characters in the dark until the last possible moment. Even as the reader I was in the dark nearly until the end as to who would finally make sense out of madness.

My favorite scene in the play comes after one of the Dromios meets the woman his twin is married to and having no taste for her himself, describes her to his master in a vollying manner that had me giggling in my seat.

If you’re not a fan of Shakespeare then I would not recommend this play to you, but if you find his writing style easy enough to read and sufficient to amuse then I highly recommend it.

I’m in the process of reading all of Shakespeare’s known works so look for more reviews on his plays here.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Volume One

The Programmed Classics

Edited By: W. G. Clark & W Aldis Wright

With an introduction to each play, adapted from the Shakespearean primer of Professor Dowden.