The Comedy of Errors and the Theology of Things

Hostile to both images and physical representations (and thus to theater), aniconic cultures in early modern England brought revolutionary changes that did not change everything. New histories of consumerism recognize that with the increasing prevalence of commodities in the sixteenth century, things were increasingly perceived to have meaning. Using theological and mercantile traditions associated with Ephesus, Shakespeare forges connections between spirit and physical capital to argue that being and having little but things might be redemptive. Rather than worry about spiritual redemption being subsumed to the physical, the comedy playfully envisions possibilities for redemption through things associated with the marketplace.