The Tragedy of Errors? East-West Migrations in Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors and our own Time

This essay revisits William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors in light of the on-going so-called European migrant crisis which began to unfold in 2015. Because of its strong farcical bent, Shakespeare’s early play has often been dismissed as silly and superficial. This chapter argues that The Comedy of Errors deserves a more prominent position in the consideration of migration issues in Shakespeare than it has usually been afforded by critics because it contains a profound meditation on the problems raised by the existence of borders and the people who cross them.The play contrasts two different ways of attending to and dealing with migrants - looking at them through the eyes of the law, and listening to their story - and illustrates the consequences of adopting these perspectives. In the concluding section, the chapter considers if and how the modes of attending to strangers explored in The Comedy of Errors can be useful in approaching the contemporary crisis.