Of Memory and Literary Form by Pivetti Kyle;

Author:Pivetti, Kyle;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: University of Delaware Press
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

The problem is not simply that characters like Pistol can claim their own heroic actions on the battlefield, but also that such impostors can supply the details that support those claims. They can, as Gower asserts, memorize the facts. The criminal will “learn you by rote” and “con perfectly in the phrase of war,” meaning that he recites what he needs to in order to achieve his desired ends. Gower’s tirade strikes a compelling counterpoint to Glyndwr’s magical invocation, for it indicates that any spirits who return from the past are the products of deception and false memory. The rogue will in some sense become “the dead,” nothing more than a set of cues memorized to serve his own selfish ends. Yet memory in this account works toward fraud, the sleight-of-hand that allows the counterfeit to claim his advantage over others.

The play, of course, never fails to tell its audience that Gower too is merely a portrayal. Behind Shakespeare’s lines of dialogue resides an actor, one who embodies history in the “new-tuned oaths” of the public stage. This actor has also memorized details for the surrounding crowds, and he repeats that performance as necessary. It is the Chorus that offers self-conscious reflection on Shakespeare’s memory work.[51] Before the final act, this intermediary establishes the competition between the dramatic form and its historical sources. The tone is apologetic, for the play cannot include the entirety of the original material:

Vouchsafe to those that have not read the story

That I may prompt them—and of such as have,

I humbly pray them to admit th’excuse

Of time, of number, and due course of things,

Which cannot in their huge and proper life

Be here presented. (5.0.1–6)

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