Customer Reviews

The Comedy of Errors (Dover Thrift Editions)

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This is a good, basic text -- there are only a few questionable spelling issues, and don't look to the footnotes to provide any useful information, whatsoever.

The plot of this play is exactly the kind of thing for which the term "madcap" was coined. More so than many of Shakespeare's plays, the humor has survived the many changes our culture has undergone since his time. It's easy to see the similarity between this plot and any number of sitcom plots ranging from the "I Love Lucy" show all the way up through "Sabrina the Teenaged Witch" and "That Seventies Show". In fact, the plot device of twins causing mistaken identity was a VERY frequent device in the old "Patty Duke Show" back in the sixties (functionally as antiquated as Shakespeare's time to most young people). In fact, the semi-modern comic style that this play MOST reminds me of is "Abbott and Costello"; I can VERY easily envision Bud and Lou as the Antipholuses and Dromios, respectively.

All of which just goes to prove that Shakespeare wasn't, at least in his comedies, writing "literature". He was writing pop culture, and in some ways, pop culture hasn't changed a bit in 400 years.

This is a short book, yet well worth the money for this Dover Thrift edition. Here, a case of doubly mistaken identity serves as a basis for much confusion and drama, and therefore many puns and other fun with word play. This earlier work is more readable than some of Shakespeare's later works, which may be one reason that it includes fewer footnotes.