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The Comedy of Errors Can Be Dated Between Dating Shakespeare’s Plays: The Comedy of Errors The Comedie of Errors he Comedy of Errors can be dated between in 1688) contains an account of the revels at 1566, the date of its latest source, and Gray’s Inn during the 1594 Christmas season; for 1594 when it was performed at Gray’s Inn. the finale to a night of entertainment and uproar T on 28 December: a Comedy of Errors (like to Plautus his Publication Date Menechmus) was played by the Players. The Comedy of Errorsis one of eighteen plays in In 1604, exactly ten years later to the day, it F1 which had not previously been published. was played as part of the Christmas festivities at It was entered into the Stationers’ Register on Court, ‘[b]y his Maiesties plaiers. On Inosents 8 November 1623 alongside other plays as “not Night The Plaie of Errors. Shaxberd’ [Revels]. No formerly entred to other men”: other production is known before 1716. The play is apparently mentioned by Meres in Mr Blounte Isaak Jaggard. Entered for Palladis Tamia in 1598: their Copie vnder the hands of Mr Doctor Worral and Mr Cole – warden, Mr William As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best Shakspeers Comedyes Histories, and for Comedy and Tragedy among the Latines: Tragedyes soe manie of the said Copies as so Shakespeare among y’ English is the most are not formerly entered to other men. vizt. excellent in both kinds for the stage; for Comedyes. The Tempest. The two gentlemen Comedy, witnes his Ge’tleme’ of Verona, his of Verona. Measure for Measure. The Comedy Errors, . of Errors. As you Like it. All’s well that ends well. Twelft night. The winters tale. Histories. As the play had not yet been published, Meres The thirde parte of Henry the sixt. Henry the eight. Coriolanus. Timon of Athens. Julius is assumed either to have seen the play in Caesar. Tragedies. Mackbeth. Anthonie & performance or perhaps heard of it through a Cleopatra. Cymbeline. ‘court insider’ such as Anthony Munday. Sources It occupies the fifth position in the Comedies, coming after Measure for Measure and before Bullough states that the play is largely based on Much Ado About Nothing. It is the shortest play in the work of the Roman dramatist, Plautus. His the canon at about 1700 lines. Menaechmi was published in numerous editions in the sixteenth century, in its original Latin. The Performance Dates comedy arises from the embarrassment of a man searching for his long-lost twin brother, whose There is one contemporary record of a sixteenth- intimate acquaintances mistake each for the other. century performance of what is taken to be The Shakespeare adds to the confusion and slapstick Comedy of Errors. The Gesta Grayorum (printed by giving each twin the same name (Antipholus), © De Vere Society 1 Dating Shakespeare’s Plays: The Comedy of Errors and by having as their servants another set of long- Internal Orthodox Evidence lost twins – who also share a name (Dromio). The play seems to have been composed before the The interpretation of internal evidence for dating publication of the first English translation of the the play is varied. The key passage occurs in 3.2. Menaechmi in 1595.1 125–7: One episode in Shakespeare’s play (in which the wife of one twin bars him from his own house Syr. Antipholus. Where France? where she is entertaining his brother, believing Syr. Dromio In her forehead, armed him to be her husband) appears to be based on and reverted, making war another play by Plautus, Amphitruo. As Bullough against her heir. has also pointed out, two strands of the play seem This is generally recognised as a reference to the to be based on the story of Apollonius of Tyre, civil war in France between Henri of Navarre and as told by John Gower in his Confessio Amantis the Catholic League. The war broke out in 1589 on (1393): the serious opening scene (where Egeon, the death of Henri III and ended when Henri IV father of the Antipholus twins, is under threat (as Navarre now was) re-converted to Catholicism of death) and the surprising final resolution.2 in July 1593. These dates appear to define a Gower’s work had been widely published, e.g. by four-year period within which the reference was Caxton in 1483 and by Berthelette in 1532. topically accurate, and within which, therefore, Bullough also mentions similarities with the play must have been written. Quiller-Couch incidents in Secchi’s Gl’lnganni of 1549, an Italian (1968:xiii) and Dorsch (2004:39) tentatively go play in the ‘commedia erudita tradition’, not further and suggest the precise date of 1591 when available in English. Gl’lnganni (‘The Deceits’) two English expeditions were sent to France to was also used for Twelfth Night). Foakes (intro support Navarre. xxxii–iv) develops further connections with Unfortunately, matters are not so clear-cut. Gascoigne’s Supposes of 1566 also performed at Henri IV himself, writing in 1589, asserts: “This Gray’s Inn. The Supposes, a translation of Ariosto’s foure yeares space I have beene ... the subject of I Suppositi (1509), is the latest source for The civile armes.” Foakes (intro, page xx) reports that Taming of the Shrew. his letter was immediately translated into English. As late as 1597 English writers were referring to Orthodox Date the civil war as still in progress (1593 marking no more than a truce) and the Edict of Nantes finally The date assigned to the play ranges from 1584– ended forty years of religious conflict in 1598. 1594. Chambers places it on stylistic and other Foakes concludes (intro, xxi) that the evidence grounds as the earliest comedy, 1592–3. Orthodox of the quotation is consequently unreliable: “The scholars concur that this short play is one of the allusion could have made its point at any time in writer’s earliest, but there is much uncertainty the decade after 1585.” and disagreement over what `early’ is. Estimates A similar question very soon afterwards in of the most likely date of writing range from the dialogue produces in Dromio’s answer: “The 1584–9 (Alexander), up to 1589 (Cairncross), hot breath of Spain, who sent whole armadoes through 1589 (Baldwin, Honigmann), 1588–92 of carracks” (3.2.139–41). This ‘hot breath’ was (Mangan), 1591 (Dorsch), 1591–2 (Quiller- interpreted, by the successive Cambridge editors, Couch), 1590–93 (Foakes) to 1592–94 (Wells & as an allusion to the recent – for 1591 – defeat of Taylor). Whitworth, following Wells & Taylor’s the Spanish Armada in 1588 (Quiller Couch, intro stylistic tests, prefers 1594. Wiggins dates this xiii). Other commentators think it could allude play to 1592. Some scholars think it an apprentice to the Great Carrack, a huge Portuguese galleon piece, perhaps Shakespeare’s first play, but others captured and brought to England in September consider it more competent, therefore later, than 1592 (Foakes, xix). Dromio’s answer is similarly The Two Gentlemen of Veronaand The Taming of vague and capable of various interpretations. the Shrew. © De Vere Society 2 Dating Shakespeare’s Plays: The Comedy of Errors External Orthodox Evidence to Navarre’s status, from the protestant viewpoint, Henri of Navarre was ‘heir’ from June 1584 to The play must have been written by 1598, when August 1589. Moore argues that this would have Francis Meres’s Palladis Tamia was published. been an important matter of detail and principle It refers to “his Errors” as one of Shakespeare’s for a protestant English audience, who had plays, and as part of the proof of his excellence common cause with Henri of Navarre. Further in comedy. The record in the Gesta Grayorum is weighty considerations in these circumstances strong evidence that the play was in existence at would have been Philip of Spain’s support of the least four years earlier. ultra-Catholics in both England and France, and papal interference in the politics of both countries. Oxfordian Date So the dates when the ‘heir’ of France was at war provide a clearly defined period to corroborate Clark proposed 1577. Charlton Ogburn Jr concurs Moore’s 1587–8 dating of the play. with this date. Moore, however, suggests 1587–8 Commentators have noted the density of for the key development of the play as we know legal terminology in The Comedy of Errors. it in the 1623 text; Hess et al., following Moore, Fripp found 150 examples of legal terms, many favour 1587. highly technical. Dorsch notes about a dozen of them in the first scene – more than dramatically Internal Oxfordian Evidence necessary. This language, of course, would appeal to an audience with legal training. Sams, who Moore adopts a different interpretation of ‘heir’ in refers to Fripp’s researches, finds such language to the crucial reference to Henri of Navarre (3.2.127), be evidence for the speculation that Shakespeare emphasising that it is highly significant that the had been a lawyer’s clerk – one of the many jobs word is not ‘king’. He points out that Henri that have been proposed for him during the ‘lost’ of Navarre, though a protestant convert, was years up to the early 1590s. Oxford was admitted technically heir to the French throne from June to Gray’s Inn on 1 February 1567 (Nelson, 46) 1584 when, on the death of the Duc d’Alençon, and in 1570 the Inn purchased his coat-of-arms. Henri III acknowledged him as his legal successor, Although he is not known to have bought legal “my sole and only heir”. A year later, under books – his tastes were literary – Oxford spent pressure from the Guise-led Catholic League, most of his life dealing with legal problems and which recognised the Cardinal de Bourbon as lawyers, so there can be no uncertainty about his heir presumptive, Henri III (illegally) removed familiarity with the law (Nelson, 46).
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