The Comedy of Errors (Vol. 34) | John P. Cutts (essay date 1968)
John P. Cutts (essay date 1968)
SOURCE: "The Comedy of Errors," in The Shattered Glass: A Dramatic Pattern in Shakespeare's Early Plays, Wayne State University Press, 1968, pp. 13-21.
[In this excerpt, Cutts maintains that the plot of The Comedy of Errors hinges on the characters' failure to see beyond appearances, showing that they neither know themselves nor understand others.]
The lasting interest of The Comedy of Errors, I suggest, lies in the inability of its dramatis personae to see beyond the mirror of identical twins, to see any further than outward semblances. Master and servant, husband and wife, tradesman and client know no more about each other than what mistakenly they see in a glass, nor do they realize they are seeing darkly. We may, of course, suggest that the characters are stock classical and / or commedia dell'arte representations, but whether we agree with this, there are good reasons for...
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