© 2009 The Author Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Literature Compass 6/3 (2009): 726–740, 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2009.00636.x Blackwell Publishing Ltd Oxford, UK LICO Literature Compass 1741-4113 1741-4113 © 2009 The Author Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 636 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2009.00636.x March 2009 0 726??? 740??? Shakespeare Shakespeare and the Senses Shakespeare and the Senses Shakespeare and the Senses Holly Dugan* The George Washington University Abstract This article examines recent critical approaches to Shakespeare and the senses. Historicizing the senses has posed certain methodological challenges: what is the relationship between subjective sensory perceptions and broader cultural under- standings of sensation? Does the sensate have a history? Recent work on each of the five senses demonstrates that the answer is yes. And, surprisingly, Shakespeare and his literary works are at the center of the field. As an important figure of the English literary canon, yet one about whom we know so very little, Shakespeare’s sensory archive is both omnipresent and illusive. Shakespearean sensations thus provide a way of grappling with the larger methodological stakes of this field. This article examines a wide range of critical approaches to Shakespeare’s sensory archive and ends by considering possible paths for further research. In his summary of the field, ‘Producing Sense, Consuming Sense, Making Sense: Perils and Prospects of Sensory History’, Mark Smith asserts that it is a good moment to be a sensory historian (841). Despite the cautionary tone of his title, sensory history is a burgeoning field: what was once described as a ‘senseless’ profession is now rife with sensuous explorations and encounters with the past (Roeder; Howes; M. Smith). Recent works in early modern studies alone include studies of the acoustic world of the Renaissance; of the role of voice in creating gender on the Renaissance stage; of the role of touch in early modern culture; of scents as staged properties; of taste in early modern manuscript coteries; of chocolate and tobacco in early modern Europe; and of the sensory worlds of early America, to name just a few examples (B. Smith; Bloom; Harvey; Harris; Dugan; Masten; Norton; Hoffer). Though these studies are diverse in their approaches and arguments, when read together, they collectively argue that the five human senses – vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch – provide an important way of understanding the interface between material environments and somatic experiences and between scholars and the sensory worlds of the past. Until recently, such a conclusion seemed oxymoronic, if not impossible: how could something as subjective, fleeting, and ephemeral as the sensate have a history? Though Aristotle first defined the five human senses over