The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare | Introduction & Overview

The Comedy of Errors Introduction

The Comedy of Errors is considered one of Shakespeare's earliest plays, possibly his first comedy and certainly his shortest play, written sometime between 1589 and 1594, although it was not printed until1623. The primary source of the play is the Menaechmi of Plautus, a Roman comic playwright, but Shakespeare also borrowed from Plautus's Amphitruo. From the Menaechmi Shakespeare took his central plot, which revolves around "errors," or mistaken identity, involving identical twin brothers. To this Shakespeare added additional characters and episodes.

Much of the Criticism on the play discusses how Shakespeare complicated Plautus's plot Shakespeare added another set of twins, servants to the twin sons of Aegeon. The story of Aegeon—his separation from his wife and one of the twin sons—is also a change from the Roman play Shakespeare gave greater voice to the primary female characters in the play (and thus to issues of gender and the relationships...
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