'Who's There?' Hearing Character in Hamlet

• Published in: ELH Vol. 90; no. 1; pp. 1 - 27
• Main Author: Vinter, Maggie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 01.03.2023
• Subjects: Austen, Jane (1775-1817); Ballads; British & Irish literature; Dramatists; English literature; Interiority; Jonson, Ben (1573-1637); Memory; Morality; Music; Shakespeare, William (1564-1616); Sound

Repetitive sound has an important role in early modern dramatic character construction, which modern accounts of sonic contagion and earworms can clarify. Hamlet repeatedly shows sonic snippets passing between characters, and transforming from unvoiced potentiality into audible noise and back. Share...