The Comedy of Errors The Comedy of Errors 2ed

Lively, instructive access to Shakespeare's rich and complex works.

The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. For this second edition of The Comedy of Errors, Ros King has revised T. S. Dorsch's renowned text and commentary and written a completely new introduction to the work. She argues that the play cannot be regarded merely as a farcical romp based on a classical model but that it belongs to the critically misunderstood genre of tragi-comedy. Emphasising the seriousness that underlies the text, she pays special attention to the play's religious imagery and at the same time engages fully with its lightness of touch and its continuing popularity in the theatre. The volume also features accounts of recent and historical performances, and an updated reading list.

List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; Preface to first edition; Abbreviations; Introduction by Ros King: Shakespeare's main source: Plautus's Menaechmi; Shakespeare's first tragicomedy; Shakespeare's schooling and the construction of The Comedy of Errors; Casting the twins; Verse form and metrication; The first known performance: Gray's Inn 1594; Later productions; Note on the text; List of characters; THE PLAY; Appendixes: 1. The performance of 1594; 2. Passages from the Bible; Reading list.

Ros King has provided a completely new Introduction, arguing that Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors cannot be regarded merely as a farcical romp based on a classical model, but belongs to the critically misunderstood genre of tragi-comedy. Her Introduction also engages fully with the play's continuing popularity in the theatre.