SOURCE: “The Significance of Shakespeare's ‘Classical’ Comedy,” in Shakespeare, Plautus and the Humanist Tradition, D. S. Brewster, 1990, pp. 198-211.

In the essay that follows, Riehle argues that The Comedy of Errors reflects a classically “pagan” orientation, in which the fantastical elements enhance rather than hinder the coherence and intensity of the drama.

Errors is a play in which a number of themes that were to become increasingly important in Shakespeare's work are dramatized. Very early in the play, the ‘cosmic order’, the ‘cosmic reality behind appearance’¹ is envisaged, and the contrast between appearance and reality becomes fundamental. H. F. Brooks has rightly maintained that ‘At the centre is relationship: relationship between human beings, depending on their right relationship to truth and universal law.’² The necessity of justice as well as of mercy is emphasized. All this, except for the theme of cosmic order, is fully in line with...