Urban Misidentification in The Comedy of Errors and the Cony-Catching Pamphlets

This essay argues that the cony-catching pamphlets of the 1590s form a central context for Shakespeare's early comedy. The play and the pamphlets point to an early modern fascination with misidentification as a gauge of the social order. Social exchange itself, fraught with cultural assumptions that inhibit communication, gives rise to misidentification. This allows criminals to insert themselves into social circles at will, while causing general chaos even in the absence of devious intent in Shakespeare's comedy. Both the play and the rogue texts leave us with the impression of a social order that is already destabilized from within.