SOURCE: Maguire, Laurie. “The Girls from Ephesus.” In “The Comedy of Errors”: Critical Essays, edited by Robert S. Miola, pp. 355-91. New York: Garland Publishing, 1997.

In the following excerpt, Maguire presents an overview of The Comedy of Errors that elucidates the drama's structural use of pairing and opposition in relation to its theme of marriage and its depiction of the female characters Adriana and Luciana.

In adapting Roman source material (Plautus' Amphitryo and Menaechmi) for The Comedy of Errors, Shakespeare made two particularly significant changes: he doubled the number of twins, and he changed the setting from Epidamnus to Ephesus. Critics frequently observe the effects of these changes. The first increases “the incidents of error in the play from seventeen to fifty”¹ for, although the resident twin in Menaechmi can be mistaken, there is no one whom he can mistake; and the second introduces the occult, Ephesian deception...