http://www.columbia.edu/itc/english/kastan/W3335x01/client_edit/studyguides/Comedy%20of%20Errors.htm
Comedy of Errors - Kastan's Study Guide (see link above)
Comedy of Errors was one of Shakespeares earliest plays. We can't be sure
of the date of its composition or of its first performance, but it was played
at Gray's Inn (one of the London law schools) on 28 December, 1594. It was not
printed until 1623, when it appears among the Comedies in the so-called first
Folio. The play is modeled on a Roman comedy, the Menaechmi, by Plautus, which,
as it wasn't translated into English until 1595, Shakespeare presumably read
in Latin.
1. Plautus sets the action of his play in Epidamnum; Shakespeare sets his farce
in Ephesus. Why might Shakespeare have relocated the action? What might Ephesus
suggested to a Renaissance audience? What would the major source of this knowledge
be?
2. Plautus's play has one set of twins (he writes another play, the Amphitruo,
which has identical twin slaves). Shakespeare gives us two sets of twins, each
identical even in name. What does this do beyond merely multiplying the opportunities
for confusion?
3. In a sense this is a "city comedy". the urban setting and commercial
culture are part of its plot. How does this setting affect the play? (Unlike
many of the other comedies, here there is no alternative or "green"
world for characters to flee to.)
4. Egeon's opening speech is a disturbing tale of loss and danger; how does
the genuine threat to his life affect the audience's experience of the play's
hilarity (It IS funny). How does his experience provide a context for understanding
the notion of comedy at work here?
5. Think about the language of dissolution. Look, for example, at 1.2.35-8.
Clearly what amuses the audience unnerves the characters.
6. Think about the play's various women. Compare Luciana and Adriana - and think
paticularly about their attitudes towards marriage.
7. What do you make of the Abbess at the end. What values does she give voice
to? his is one of only two places in Shakespeare where he withholds from the
audience some crucial aspect of the plot. What does that do?
8. Social inequities are given voice throughout the play - a husband, for example,may
be "master of his liberty" (2.1.7), a wife must "practise to
obey" (2.1. 29), or the Dromios who are somehow born into service. What
does the comedy suggest about the social order and what does the social order
suggest about comedy)?
9. In what ways is Comedy of Errors like the later comedies? How does it differ?
Think especially about what the inhibition is to the happy ending that is finally
achieved.