Yorick's Afterlives

Skull Properties in Performance

Authors

Elizabeth Williamson The Evergreen State College

Abstract

Hamlet's address to Yorick's skull is at the heart of the Shakespearean canon, but is often conflated with the equally famous "To be or not to be" soliloquy in act 3, scene 1. This article reasserts the importance of the skull property by examining its afterlife on the modern stage, arguing that the use of real human remains in productions of Hamlet reveals a strong desire on the part of actors and theatergoers to be part of a kind of sacred lineage. The play text makes it clear that we can never be entirely sure whose skull it is that the gravedigger hands to Hamlet; it might be that of the prince's jester, a great lady, or a horse thief. The use of actual skulls — many of which have their own complicated life histories — as stage properties underscores the transgressive potential of the scene and testifies to the theater's ambivalent relationship to narratives of transcendence.

Author Biography

Elizabeth Williamson, The Evergreen State College

Elizabeth Williamson teaches at Evergreen State College. She is the author of The Materiality of Religion in Early Modern English Drama (Ashgate, 2009) and co-editor (with Jane Hwang Degenhardt) of Religion and Drama in Early Modern England (Ashgate, 2011). Her articles on religiously charged stage properties have appeared in English Literary Renaissance and Studies in English Literature, as well as the edited collection Shakespeare and Religious Change. More broadly, her research and teaching deal with the intersection of theater and popular culture in a variety of historical time periods.