Short post today. 🙂
Comedy of Errors has a lot going for it, but as I was reading it, it read to me almost like “Shakespeare as a teenager.” So I looked it up, and sure enough. It is one of his earliest plays. (Some lists I looked at show it as the very first one he wrote; others show it at some point in the first five or six plays.)
This is definitely not his best work, but it was an incredible reading experience for me. I loved reading it because it showed to me in a really powerful and clear way the progression of Shakespeare’s writing – especially after Henry IV, Part 1 (which is a mid-career play) and Timon of Athens, Othello, and Antony and Cleopatra (which are all quite late plays). It was fascinating to see the very specific ways that he developed and learned. It also was a great lesson to me that even someone even as gifted as Shakespeare didn’t spring up as a fully-developed writer the day he was born. Just like the rest of us, he learned over time.
So although Comedy of Errors is not a play that I would recommend starting with, it is definitely a fascinating one.
Have you had an experience like this with Shakespeare, or with another author? I’d love to hear about it!
