ABSTRACT
One model, the diachronic, focuses on predecessor texts that leave distinctive linguistic traces in subsequent works as markers of allusion, borrowing, or adaptation; this is the field of traditional source study. Diachronic model introduces the familiar realm of textual allusions. Synchronic model addresses the way that texts speak to each other within a commonly shared semantic or semiotic system. Mention of the synchronic model introduces the second source-study puzzle, the relationship between errors and contemporaneous learned comedy from Italy. Louise George Clubb argues that Italian comedy changed significantly in the second half of the cinquecento into what became known as commedia grave. With devices of endangerment, such as shipwrecks, and with corresponding evocations of pity and wonder, commedia grave pulled closer to potential tragedy than had earlier Italian comedy. Altogether, the evidence for the influence of Italian theater on Elizabethan England looks strong, but, in the specific case of The Comedy of Errors, one must consider possible reservations.
