The Comedy of Errors
by William Shakespeare
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Book Summary Information
Author: William ShakespeareEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1996-09-01
ISBN: 0671722573
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Book Reviews of The Comedy of Errors
Book Review: Quadrapalooza
Summary: 4 Stars
Usually Shakespeare is easier to watch on stage than to read. Yet this one is bound to confuse no matter what form you experience it in.
Two sets of twins, one high born, the other their slaves, are cast in the ocean by a storm during childhood, splitting them into two sets of one son and one slave. Their father, searching for the lost pair, journeys into the right town, Ephesus, at the wrong time. He is to be executed as an political pawn. Meanwhile, the other pair of mismatched twins finds themselves in Ephesus, too, well confusing the good people of Ephesus, including the lost pair's wives.
William Shakespeare was just starting as a playwright when he wrote this, a comedy, sometime around 1594. Bigger fish were still to fry. This, his shortest extant play, has plenty of charm and slapstick to go along with what the Pelican edition editor notes are some pretty awful puns based on Elizabethan pronunciations. If you are looking for a good laugh, Shakespeare's a few centuries out of date. "Comedy Of Errors" works better as an appetizer for meatier Shakespeare works, showcasing his wondrous use of and joy with the English language.
Many of the best lines reflect the play's concern about misrepresentation and frustration with life's station:
"How many fond fools serve mad jealousy?" (Act II, scene i)
"For slander lives upon succession,/Forever housed where it gets possession." (III, i)
"The venom clamors of a jealous woman/Poisons more deadly than a mad dog's tooth." (V, i)
"Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season, where in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme nor reason?" (II, ii)
The last line is one of the slaves, Dromio of Syracuse, lamenting another beating at the hands of his master, Antipholus of Syracuse. There's more slave beatings in this play than in the whole of "Roots", yet in this case they serve as comedy in Homer-strangles-Bart fashion.
Much of the rest of the comedy involve confusion between this Antipholus and Dromio and the other pair, who bear the same names, except they are known as Antipholus and Dromio "of Ephesus". People approach them knowing their names; Antipholus's "wife" upbraids him for being a stranger to her bed.
The Pelican edition is designed to be read with minimal expository interruption, giving you brief explanations of archaic terms but not the historical analysis of, say, Folger editions. I like the latter approach, but have to say I found myself with enough information to juggle here with the text itself. Keeping track of the misadventures of the two sets of mismatched twins requires some concentration.
Still, there's real merriment in this play, similar to that found in the superior Shakespeare festival of confusion, "A Midsummer Night's Dream". You also get a lot of interesting observations about male-female relations where Shakespeare is either sending up or celebrating the traditional male-dominant order. It's hard to tell.
It's hard to tell a lot of things where "Comedy Of Errors" is concerned. You have fun being kept guessing.
Summary of The Comedy of Errors
The Arden Shakespeare is the established edition of Shakespeare's work. Justly celebrated for its authoritative scholarship and invaluable commentary, Arden guides you a richer understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare's plays. This edition of The Comedy of Errors provides, a clear and authoritative text, detailed notes and commentary on the same page as the text, a full introduction discussing the critical and historical background to the play and appendices presenting sources and relevant extracts.General Books
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