Shakespeare and Memory

Description

Hamlet's father's Ghost asks his son to 'Remember me!', but how did people remember around 1600? And how do we remember now? Shakespeare and Memory brings together classical and early modern sources, theatre history, performance, material culture, and cognitive psychology and neuroscience in order to explore ideas about memory in Shakespeare's plays and poems. It argues that, when Shakespeare was writing, ideas about memory were undergoing a kind of crisis, as both the technologies of memory (print, the theatre itself) and the belief structures underpinning ideas about memory underwent rapid change. And it suggests that this crisis might be mirrored in our own time, when, despite all the increasing gadgetry at our disposal, memory can still be recovered, falsified, corrupted, or wiped: only we ourselves can remember, but the workings of memory remain mysterious. Shakespeare and Memory draws on works from all stages of Shakespeare's career, with a particular focus on Hamlet, the Sonnets, Twelfth Night, and The Winter's Tale. It considers some little things: what's Hamlet writing on? And why does Orsino think he smells violets? And it asks some big questions: how should the dead be remembered? What's the relationship between memory and identity? And is it art, above all, that enables love and beauty, memory and identity, to endure in the face of loss, time, and death? Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 12 Note on Texts......Page 13 List of Illustrations......Page 14 1. Introduction: Why Memory?......Page 16 2. The Art of Memory: Hamlet......Page 26 3. Remembering Rome: Titus Andronicus, The Rape of Lucrece, Troilus and Cressida......Page 51 4. Remembering England: The Histories, Henry VIII......Page 76 5. Remembering the Dead: Hamlet......Page 105 6. Remembering Love: Twelfth Night, the Sonnets, Troilus and Cressida......Page 129 7. The Memory of Things: The Winter’s Tale, The Merchant of Venice, Othello, Hamlet......Page 156 8. Remembrance of Things Past: The Sonnets, The Winter’s Tale......Page 185 9. Epilogue: Remembering Shakespeare......Page 211 Notes......Page 218 Further Reading......Page 231 D......Page 238 K......Page 239 M......Page 240 R......Page 241 T......Page 242 Y......Page 243