ABSTRACT
Personal and social practices of memory can be seen to define the titular hero of Titus Andronicus. William Shakespeare's earliest tragedy, Titus Andronicus, and his most satirical play, Troilus and Cressida, exhibit similarities that are opportune for exploring the functions of memory. In both the Philomel story and in Titus Andronicus, the cook is also the slayer of the mythical heroine and of the Shakespearean hero's offspring respectively, while in each case the royal authorities are tricked into the cannibalistic eating of their children. Strikingly, memory is also put to the test in a play like Troilus and Cressida whose characters and combined stories bring to the fore a sense of anguished fracturing and implicitly a nostalgia for or painful remembrance of a lost wholeness. In contrast to Titus Andronicus, the stories of war and love in Troilus and Cressida might be well 'remembered' by educated sections of the Elizabethan audience.
