Table Of ContentShakespeare’s Props
Shakespeare’s most famous props have become transhistorical, trans-
national metonyms for their plays: a strawberry-spotted handkerchief
instantly recalls Othello, and a skull instantly recalls Hamlet. This
book reveals the cognitive impact of Shakespeare’s props. Departing
from the long-standing tendency to conceptualise props as detachable
body parts, this monograph argues for props as detachable parts of
the mind. Through props, Shakespeare’s characters reveal their own
cognition and intervene in the cognition of other characters, illuminat-
ing and extending their affect. Shakespeare’s props are neither static
icons nor substitutes for the body, but volatile, malleable, and danger-
ously exposed extensions of his characters’ minds. Recognising them as
such offers new readings of the plays, from the way memory becomes
a weapon in Hamlet’s Elsinore to the pleasures and perils of Early
Modern gift culture in Othello. The book illuminates Shakespeare’s
exploration of extended cognition, recollection, and remembrance at a
time when the growth of printing was forcing Renaissance culture to
rethink the relationship between memory and the object. Readings in
Shakespearean stage history, drawing on much unpublished archival
material, reveal how props illuminate cultural priorities: while some
props accrue cultural memories, others decay and are forgotten as de-
tritus of the stage.
Sophie Duncan is a Fixed-Term Fellow in English at Christ Church,
University of Oxford, where she researches and teaches from the
Renaissance to the present day. Before moving to Christ Church,
she was Postdoctoral Research Associate and Junior Dean of Arts
at Magdalen College, University of Oxford. She is the author of
Shakespeare’s Women and the Fin de Siècle (Oxford University Press,
2016) and, with Rachael Lennon, Women and Power: The Struggle for
Suffrage ( National Trust Books: 2018). She has published widely on
gender and race in Shakespeare performance history and works as an
historical advisor for theatre, radio, and the heritage industry. Her blog
is at clamorousvoice.com.
Routledge Studies in Shakespeare
29 Shakespeare and the Cultivation of Difference
Race and Conduct in the Early Modern World
Patricia Akhimie
30 Casual Shakespeare
Three Centuries of Verbal Echoes
Regula Hohl Trillini
31 Shakespearean Temporalities
History on the Early Modern Stage
Lukas Lammers
32 Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study
Audiences, Authors, and Digital Technologies
Edited by Dennis Austin Britton & Melissa Walter
33 Shakespeare and Indian Cinemas
‘Local Habitations’
Edited by Poonam Trivedi and Paromita Chakravarti
34 Shakespeare and Asia
Edited by Jonathan Locke Hart
35 Francis Bacon’s Contribution to Shakespeare
A New Attribution Method
Barry R. Clarke
36 Shakespeare’s Props
Memory and Cognition
Sophie Duncan
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com
Shakespeare’s Props
Memory and Cognition
Sophie Duncan
First published 2019
by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an
informa business
© 2019 Taylor & Francis
The right of Sophie Duncan to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections
77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Duncan, Sophie, 1987– author.
Title: Shakespeare’s props: memory and cognition /
Sophie Duncan.
Description: New York, NY: Routledge, 2019. |
Series: Routledge studies in Shakespeare; 36 |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018052480
Subjects: LCSH: Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616—Criticism
and interpretation. | Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616—
Dramatic production. | Memory in literature. | Object
(Aesthetics) in literature. | Stage props.
Classification: LCC PR2976 .D727 2019 | DDC 822.3/3—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018052480
ISBN: 978-1-138-29122-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-26558-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by codeMantra
For my parents, Pam and Alastair Duncan
Contents
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgements xi
List of Abbreviations xv
Introduction: Props and Cognition 1
1 ‘Must I remember?’: Objects, Recollection,
and Grief in Hamlet 36
2 ‘Washing the Ethiope white’: Biography
of a Handkerchief 62
3 ‘Picture[s] in Little’: Hamlet the Curator 112
4 Babies and Corpses 146
5 Broken Props and the Battle to Forget 195
Epilogue: The Politics of Props 230
Bibliography 241
Index 269
List of Figures
I.1 RSC prop store, 2018. © Tristram Kenton 18
I.2 Chewing-gum wrapper designs for The Time
of Your Life (1983), directed by Howard Davies.
© Royal Shakespeare Company 21
1.1 Writing tables with a kalender for xxiii years, with
sundry necessary rules. The tables made by Robert
Triplet (1604). © Folger Shakespeare Library. Shared
under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. See: https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 49
2.1 Cream silk handkerchief with embroidered strawberry
leaves, flowers and fruits, used by Ellen Terry when
she played ‘Desdemona’ in ‘Othello’ at the Lyceum
Theatre, 17th January 1881. © Victoria & Albert
Museum, London 64
2.2 Othello (2015, dir. Iqbal Khan). Emilia
(Ayesha Dharker) finds the (black) handkerchief.
Photo by Keith Pattison © RSC 78
3.1 Hamlet (1961, dir. Peter Wood). Hamlet (Ian Bannen)
confronts Gertrude (Elizabeth Sellars) with the
miniatures of Old Hamlet and Claudius, worn as
pendants. Photo by Angus McBean © RSC 117
3.2 Hamlet (2008, dir. Gregory Doran). Hamlet (David
Tennant) uses a newspaper to confront Gertrude
(Penny Downie) with images of her two husbands.
Photo by Ellie Kurtz © RSC 120
4.1 Graham Norton and Daniel Radcliffe with the life-
sized model of Radcliffe used in Swiss Army Man.
Justin Timberlake and Anna Kendrick look on, 29
September 2016. © Ian West/PA Archive/PA Images. 148
4.2 The Winter’s Tale (2006) prompt book. Directed by
Dominic Cooke. © RSC 174
