“My door is locked”: la scena dell’exclusio e l’interazione con i modelli plautini in The Comedy of Errors di Shakespeare

As is widely known, Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors has among its major sources Plautus’ Menaechmi and Amphitruo. This essay examines the lock-out scene (The Comedy of Errors III, i) in which Antipholus of Ephesus is kept out from his own house because his twin, Antipholus of Syracuse, is already within, with the aim of analysing the interaction between the models and offering an example of Shakespeare’ refined technique of contamination. In actual fact, Shakespeare draws on two episodes from Amphitruo (Amph. 153-462 and 1021-1034 e 1035-1052) and two from Menaechmi (Men. 602-674 and 675-700). Condensing four episodes into a single scene requires a great ability: Shakespeare intermixes the models and, even when using the same model, weaves one scene with another, thus further shuffling the cards. His intent is to explore all the possibilities offered by the lock-out motif, by this only apparently farcical scenic device able to produce, as is the case with Plautus, a series of effects which cannot be easily framed in comical terms or reduced to mere comicality.