SOURCE: "The Structure of Plautine Comedy and Its Impact on Shakespeare," in Shakespeare, Plautus, and the Humanist Tradition, D. S. Brewer, 1990, pp. 77-110.

In this essay, Riehle examines the structural and comedic devices Shakespeare derived from Plautus and employed in The Comedy of Errors and other works.

1. Some Basic Elements of Scenic Dramaturgy

In turning to questions of plot and the dramaturgic organization of the action, we shall not be concerned with a detailed structural comparison between [Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors] and Menaechmi, since several critics have already examined the process by which Shakespeare transforms the plot of Plautine comedy. Nor shall we consider the question of the Elizabethan attitude towards the classical unities which has also been previously discussed. We shall, instead, choose to concentrate on a number of essential structural aspects of New Comedy, and shall investigate the ways in which Shakespeare makes use of them...