ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the reappearance of three veiled or covered women who are not quite, or not entirely, mnemonic objects: Hero in Much Ado About Nothing, Thaisa in Pericles, and Hermione in The Winter's Tale. Among the intertexts for the masked woman in Much Ado About Nothing is Lucina, the aspect of the Renaissance tripartite Diana who is responsible for childbirth and who in at least one frequently-consulted source is depicted with her face covered. In Much Ado About Nothing, memory allegory emphasizes the limits of female autonomy. To the degree that it participates in this genre, Pericles invests more in action than in character or plot, and its allegory does not have the same gendered dynamic seen in Much Ado About Nothing. As in Much Ado About Nothing and Pericles, mnemonic allegory informs but does not fully explain the structure of The Winter's Tale.
