Writing in the late eighteenth century, George Steevens observed of The Comedy of Errors that ‘in this play we find more intricacy of plot than distinction of character.’ He didn’t mean it as a compliment. Complex, multi-faced characterization has become intrinsic to what we most value about Shakespeare, and at its most extreme, this critical method tends to minimize the plays’ plots or, at best, to read them solely as vehicles for the revelation and development of character. Shakespeare’s comedy about two sets of identical twins whirling around the ancient coastal city of Ephesus (situated in
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