The mistaken identity in Merchant of Venice, The Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night and As You Like It The stratagem of mistaken identity as a narrative device in comedy writing dates back at least to the times of the Greeks and Romans in the writings of Menander and Plautus. Shakespeare borrowed the device they introduced and developed it into a fine art as a means of expressing theme and promoting comic relief in his plays. Shakespeare's artistic development is clearly shown in the four comedies The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Twelfth Night and Measure for Measure, where he manages to take the germinal idea of ​​the exchange of identities and expand it to heights never imagined by its creators. In the first play, The Comedy of Errors, mistaken identity is the only impetus to action, as it had been with its original sources. The germinal idea of ​​asking how one truly knows who one is is introduced, but the conflicts that occur between appearance and reality are not fully realized. This will be accomplished by Shakespeare's maturing comedic style as he begins to recognize all the different aspects presented by the ploy of mistaken identity. the plot. However, this basic concept is explored further when it is recognized that one of the twins is actually a girl who would not normally be mistaken for her brother. This only happens because he resorted to disguise. Viola disguised as Cessario opens the door to many double meanings in the dialogue through a great play with words. When his twin brother Sebastian arrives, comedic elements reign as his gentle nature... in the center of the card... for everyone. These are just some of the ways Shakespeare altered mistaken identity by expanding the concept. to include disguise, self-delusion, and theme. It is impossible to fully develop all the uses and expansions this fundamental comic tool received in Shakespeare's hands, even when dealing with the limited scope of the plays we are examining in this issue. It is also impossible to isolate one aspect of this development from the others because Shakespeare intertwined them in such a way that in his growth as a comics writer he took the device of mistaken identity and used it in its totality of meaning. Ultimately, the exchange of identities is a subtle thread that underlies practically every comic action studied in these four works. Through the development of this simple comic device we clearly see an aspect of the whole that constitutes Shakespeare's creative genius.