Farce and Satire in Shakespeares Comedy of Errors Essays

Farce and Satire in The Comedy of Errors All is not as it seems in The Comedy of Errors. Some have the notion that The Comedy of Errors is a classical and relatively un-Shakespearean run. The plot is, in fact, ground largely on Plautuss Menaechmi, a light-hearted prank in which twins are mis findn for each other. Shakespeares sum of twin servants is borrowed from Amphitruo, another play by Plautus. Like its classical predecessors, The Comedy of Errors mixes farce and satire and (to a degree) presents us with stock characters. Besides being based on classical models, is it really fair to call The Comedy of Errors a serious play? Im not sure it is. Three-quarters of the play is a fast-paced comedy based on mistaken identity and wordplay, and often descending to crude physical humor. The framing plot changes the total impression the play makes, mixing pathos, wonder, and triumph with the hilarity. But it doesnt turn an essentially funny play into an essentially serious one. Sti ll, there are serious elements in the play, and these may stay with us nightlong than the light ones. These serious elements are not limited to the framing plot, though they often depend on it. In fact, what is serious and thought-provoking in the play is often the source of laughter, too. Usually the laughter comes first, and then, if were attentive, well notice that Shakespeare has given us something to think about. Let me offer some examples. First, the play treats with some seriousness issues related to marriage jealousy, loyalty, love, misunderstanding, the need for patience, the troubles of the marriage-bed, and the joy and kind embracements that can come with marriage (II.i.27 I.i.39, 43). Second, the... ... to describe marriage. Adriana claims that marriage has made herself and her husband one, undividable incorporate For know, my love, as cushy mayst thou fall/ A drop of water in the breaking gulf,/ And take unmingled thence that drop again,/ Without addition or dimin ishing,/ As take from me thyself and not me too (II.ii.142, 122, 125-29). Shakespeare doesnt pretend that such a union is easily achieved. He is quite aware that to offer oneself to another is to risk oneself. Works Cited * Fitch, Robert Elliot. Odyssey of the self-involved Self. New York Harcourt, 1961. * Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans et al. Boston Houghton Mifflin, 1974. * Wilbur, Richard. Introduction. Tartuffe. By Jean Baptiste Poquelin de Moliere. Trans. Richard Wilbur. San Diego Harvest-Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1963.