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The Comedy of Errors

by William Shakespeare

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Further Reading

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  • Anderson, Linda, "Early Comedies," A Kind of Wild Justice: Revenge in Shakespeare's Comedies, University of Delaware Press, 1987, pp. 23-33. (Traces the theme of “comedic revenge” in The Comedy of Errors.)
  • Barber, C. L., "Shakespearian Comedy in The Comedy of Errors," College English 25, No. 7 (1964): 493-97. (Argues that the play is deceptively fantastic in its portrayal of human relations.)
  • Berry, Ralph, "And here we wander in illusions," Shakespeare's Comedies: Explorations in Form, Princeton University Press, 1972, pp. 24-39. (Studies the extent to which The Comedy of Errors prefigures themes found in later comedies.)
  • Bevington, David, "The Comedy of Errors in the Context of the Late 1580s and Early 1590s," The Comedy of Errors: Critical Essays, edited by Robert S. Miola, Garland Publishing, 1997, pp. 335-53. (Discusses The Comedy of Errors in the larger context of Elizabethan theater.)
  • Christensen, Ann C., "‘Because Their Business Still Lies Out a' door’: Resisting the Separation of the Spheres in Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors," Literature and History 5, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 19-37. (Contends that in The Comedy of Errors Shakespeare examined Elizabethan concerns about the increasing separation between the public/commercial and private/domestic spheres.)
  • Clayton, Thomas, "The Text, Imagery, and Sense of the Abbess's Final Speech in The Comedy of Errors," Anglia: Zeitschrift für Englische Philologie 91, no. 4 (1973): 479-84. (Textual analysis of the Abbess's reunion-crowning speech in Act V, scene i of The Comedy of Errors, emphasizing its imagery of rebirth and spiritual reawakening.)
  • Crewe, Jonathan V., "God or The Good Physician: The Rational Playwright in The Comedy of Errors," Genre 15, Nos. 1 and 2 (Spring/Summer 1982): 203-23. (Examines two conceptions of the playwright that allow the farcical elements of the play to be rationally redeemed.)
  • Freedman, Barbara, "Errors in Comedy: A Psychoanalytic Theory of Farce," Shakespearean Comedy, edited by Maurice Charney, New York Literary Forum, 1980, pp. 233-43. (Contends that the genre of farce in general, and The Comedy of Errors in particular, deliberately denies and displaces meaning, a practice necessary for ordinarily unacceptable aggression to be accepted in a humorous manner.)
  • Gibbons, Brian, "Erring and Straying Like Lost Sheep: The Winter's Tale and The Comedy of Errors," Shakespeare Survey 50 (1997): 111-23. (Comparative study of dramatic modes and of such concepts as doubling, identity, and the union of man and wife in The Comedy of Errors and The Winter's Tale.)
  • Hennings, Thomas P., "The Anglican Doctrine of the Affectionate Marriage in The Comedy of Errors," Modern Language Quarterly 47, No. 2 (June 1986): 91-107. (Studies The Comedy of Errors as a complex portrait of marital harmony, influenced by Christian thought, Italian farce, and Renaissance humanism.)
  • Kinney, Arthur F., "Staging The Comedy of Errors," Shakespeare Text and Theater: Essays in Honor of Jay L. Halio, edited by Lois Potter and Arthur F. Kinney, Associated University Presses, 1999, pp. 320-31. (Sets The Comedy of Errors within its religious, political, social, and literary contexts as a stage play of the late sixteenth century.)
  • Maguire, Laurie, "The Girls from Ephesus," The Comedy of Errors: Critical Essays, edited by Robert S. Miola, Garland Publishing, 1997, pp. 355-92. (Focuses on the female characters in the play and their relation to the ideal of marriage.)
  • Marcotte, Paul J., "Eros in The Comedy of Errors," Revue de l'Université d'Ottawa 38, no. 4 (October-December 1968): 642-67. (Explores how Shakespeare's concept of love influenced The Comedy of Errors.)
  • Ornstein, Robert, "The Comedy of Errors," Shakespeare's Comedies: From Roman Farce to Romantic Mystery, University of Delaware Press, 1986, pp. 25-34. (A general introduction to the major themes of the play.)
  • Salgādo, Gāmini, "‘Time's Deformed Hand’: Sequence, Consequence, and Inconsequence in The Comedy of Errors," Shakespeare Survey 25 (1972): 81-91. (Examines the disruption of and attention to time in The Comedy of Errors.)
  • Sellar, Tom, Review of The Comedy of Errors, Village Voice 47, no. 29 (23 July 2002): 58. (Finds Robert Richmond's staging of The Comedy of Errors with the Aquila Theater Company in 2002 too slight and relentlessly silly.)
  • Soellner, Rolf, "The Comedy of Errors: Losing and Finding Oneself," Shakespeare's Patterns of Self-Knowledge, Ohio State University Press, 1972, pp. 62-77. (Reflects on the redemptive structure of the early comedies.)
  • Taylor, Gary, "Textual and Sexual Criticism: A Crux in The Comedy of Errors," Renaissance Drama n.s. 19 (1988): 195-225. (Contends that a passage spoken by Adriana in Act II, scene i of The Comedy of Errors has been corrupted by editors of the play and points to sexist prejudices within the text.)
  • Wells, Stanley, "Reunion Scenes in The Comedy of Errors and Twelfth Night," A Yearbook of Studies in English Language and Literature 1985/86, edited by Otto Rauchbauer, Braumüller, 1986, pp. 267-76. (Examines the staging of separation and reunion in The Comedy of Errors.)
  • Williams, Gwyn, "The Comedy of Errors Rescued from Tragedy," A Review of English Literature 5, No. 4 (1964): 63-71. (Defends the “improbability” of the play's plot in its broader exploration of personal identity.)
  • Wyrick, Deborah Baker, "The Ass Motif in The Comedy of Errors and A Midsummer Night's Dream," Shakespeare Quarterly 33, no. 4 (Winter 1982): 432-48. (Explicates the epithet “ass” used frequently in Shakespearean drama, particularly in The Comedy of Errors and A Midsummer Night's Dream, as “a complex verbal cipher” with numerous symbolic and thematic overtones.)

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