Little, Post #1 - Memory

At this moment, I cannot recall learning a definition for memory. I have no memory of looking the term up in a dictionary, asking a teacher about its meaning--nothing. I have always assumed memory's definition, pompously pushing through twenty years without once thoroughly contemplating it, much less cracking a book open and relying on William Webster or the Oxford Englishmen (and women) to educate me.

For most of my life memory has been reduced to a photograph, a song, a smell or maybe an old dress from middle school. Recently, however, I've begun to question memory. Are any of my "memories" really true? How many of them actually happened? If they did happen, did they happen in the precise way that I imagine? These questions give me anxiety.

The word I'm looking for is verisimilitude. I believe that, while some small portion of my memories are true, the vast majority of them only appear true. My memories are beaten with time and wishful thinking. I am always building on them, choosing to extract the components that please me and trashing those that I would very much like to forget.

memory (n):

1. Senses relating to the action or process of commemorating, recollecting, or remembering.

2. The act of remembering; recollection, remembrance. Now chiefly in from memory, by memory, in memory. 

Etymology: from the Latin memoria--mindful, remembering

Sadly, this definition does little to soothe my anxiety about memory. Even this OED definition is unsure of memory's true meaning. Is it an action or a process? Does it involve remembering or recollection or remembrance or all three put together? I have no idea--and that is why I have chosen this as my critical concept. 

I would like to explore memory as it relates to truth in Shakespeare's works. Do Shakespeare's characters remember action as the audience has seen it or do they choose to remember things differently? Does memory enhance or undercut his characters' choices? And what, if anything, is Shakespeare teaching us about truth through the use of memory as a dramatic device (i.e. memories of love, death, betrayal, violence and other theatrical things)? I have many more equally incoherent questions about memory that I hope to tease out this semester. 

I think I also had more intelligent things to say, but I can't remember them.