2) Mistaken identity in the writings of Menander and Plautus
Shakespeare employs the concept of mistaken identity more or less in almost every one of his comedies. But the ploy of mistaken identity has been a common theatrical device long before Shakespeare’s time. It dates back as far as the times of the Greeks and the Romans, and became prominent especially in the writings of Menander and Plautus.
The Greek playwright Menander uses mistaken identity plots to make the character go through a learning process in which he will come to understand himself and his situation a lot better than before. Since ancient Roman theatre was heavily influenced by the Greek tradition, we can find a lot of the elements of Menander’s comedies in Plautus’ work. The Roman dramatist Plautus adapted and translated a lot of the works of Menander, and therefore the device of mistaken identity is also very prominent in his comedies. Shakespeare most have known the works of Plautus very well, since these plays were performed not only at courts, but also in the academies and schools throughout the late fifteenth century. Like all Roman comedies, Plautus’ plays were originally performed for the lower classes at festivals. All the elements work together to hold the attention of the fickle audience. In Plautus’ comedies Shakespeare saw the ideal ingredients for a crowd-pleasing comedy evolving around a series of mistaken identity.
When we take a close look at two of the most important comedies of Plautus, namely “Menaechmi” and “Amphitryo”, we discover that Shakespeare has definitely borrowed a lot from these two ancient masterpieces. “Menaechmi” and the “Comedy of Errors” both recount the same premise of separated identical twins who unknowingly end up in the same city which leads to a day of confusion, at the end of which they will eventually be reunited. The comic device of mistaken identity accounts for a lot of humorous situations when one twin receives the credit for the other one’s accomplishments, while the other twin gets blamed for crimes he did not commit. But of course, Shakespeare wouldn’t have been the famously known creative playwright if he would leave this idea unedited. By introducing the twin Dromios, separated identical slaves of the Antipholi twins, Shakespeare throws out all thought of convincing realism. He develops his play as a farce for its laughter multiplying the possibilities for the mistaking of identity. This way an Antipholus or a Dromio can mistake as well as be mistaken. In Plautus’ “Amphitryo”, the title character returns home from war where he finds his wife locked in the house with a man who claims to be him. When his servant Sosia intents to break down the door he is confronted with an exact copy of himself. The scene in “Comedy of Errors” where Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus find themselves locked out of their own house, while their twin brothers mistaken for themselves are actually inside with their wives, is an almost exact copycat from the scene mentioned previously. The only difference is that in Plautus’ play we are not dealing with identical twins, but with the gods Mercury and Jupiter which have taken on the shapes of the two men.
It is clear that the device of mistaken identity in Shakespeare’s “Comedy of Errors” and “Twelfth Night” is the very basis of the Plautine source, although Shakespeare’s adaptations developed the device to its height. |