T. G. Bishop, Case Western Reserve University

The sea, in fact, is that state of barbaric vagueness and disorder out of which civilisation has emerged, and into which, unless saved by the effort of gods and men, it is always liable to relapse.

W. H. Auden

Let it suffice that we have not arrived at a wall, but at interminable oceans.

Emerson

The aim of this chapter is to argue that Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors provides us with an explicitly germinal model of his dramatic practice at once in its narrative, poetic and social dimensions, and that the conclusion of the work turns to the dramatic dynamic of wonder in order to enact Shakespeare's own recognition of his practice. In order to approach this intricate nexus, we must first consider the larger question of the institution for and out of which Shakespeare wrote, to suggest how he responded...