Учебное пособие 4 unit I. The renaissance 1485-1649

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
Antipholus of Syracuse, newly arrived in the island state of Ephesus,
awaits his servant Dromio. The pair are as yet unaware that their twin
brothers, separated from them in a shipwreck soon after their births, are still
alive and living in Ephesus. Confusion quickly ensues, as the newcomers are
repeatedly mistaken for the island-dwelling pair, and vice versa.
Shakespeare’s quick-paced comedy has much in common with the modern
genre of farce: the play features frequent quick entrances and exits, mistaken
identities, marital disharmony, and a good measure of slapstick. Just before
this scene the Syracusan Antipholus has met with Dromio of Ephesus, and
mistaken him for his own servant, resulting in a beating for the poor
Ephesian, who has naturally not completed the task set for his Syracusan
twin. When the latter finally arrives, and claims no knowledge of this
incident, he too receives a beating. Things quickly become even more
complicated with the arrival of the disaffected Adriana, in pursuit of her
wayward husband, Antipholus of Ephesus…
Shakespeare based the plot of The Comedy of Errors, a farce performed
in 1594, on classical comedies by Plautus. It was published for the first time
in the First Folio of 1623. The play, Shakespeare’s shortest, depends for its
appeal on the mistaken identities of two sets of twins both separated in their
youth. The comedy ends happily with the reunion of both sets of twins, after
a bewildering series of confusions. Shakespeare makes his play more
complex than Plautus’s by the addition of the second set of twins, twin
servants to the twin brothers of the main action, and the play displays the
young Shakespeare’s formal mastery of the comic form and anticipates
themes and techniques of his later plays.
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA
One of Shakespeare’s earliest comedies, The Two Gentlemen of Verona
follows the romantic fortunes of Proteus and Valentine, the gentlemen of the
title. The changeable Proteus, having left his lover Julia in Verona with

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promises of affection, has traveled to Milan at his father’s request. There he
has fallen for Silvia, who is engaged to his friend Valentine. Unknown to
Proteus, Julia has followed him to Milan, dressed as a page-boy. In this scene
she watches as Proteus pretends to help Thurio, another suitor for Silvia’s
hand, to win Silvia’s love by serenading her; the deceitful Proteus then
remains behind to plead his own suit. Despite Silvia’s obvious disinterest,
and her strong disapproval of his disloyal behaviour towards both his friend
and his lover, he persists, falsely claiming that both Valentine and Julia are
dead. Although the situation presented is painful, there is much humour in
the scene when staged, deriving from the hoodwinking of Thurio, the
outrageous nature of Proteus’s vain attempts to woo the exasperated Silvia,
and the bitter irony in Julia’s sharp wit, demonstrated in her double-edged
comment to the Host that Proteus “plays false”—not, as the confused Host
takes it to mean, in his music, but in his love.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
, which appears as the second comedy in
the First Folio, was probably first performed about 1594. Shakespeare’s first
attempt at romantic comedy, it concerns two friends, Proteus and Valentine,
and two women, Julia and Sylvia. The play traces the relations of the four,
until the two sets of lovers are happily paired off: Proteus with Julia, and
Valentine with Sylvia. Much of the humor in the play comes from a
clownish servant, Launce, and his dog, Crab, described as “the sourest-
natured dog that lives.” Shakespeare probably wrote the part of Launce for
comic actor Will Kemp.