The Time Is Out of Joint: Shakespeare as Philosopher of History

This work covers the Shakespearean ouvre from a philosophical perspective, finding that Shakespeare’s historical dramas reflect issues and reveal puzzles which were later taken up by philosophy proper. Shakespeare’s extraordinary handling of time and temporality, the difference between truth and fact, that of theory, and that of interpretation and revelatory truth are evaluated in terms of Shakespeare’s own conjectural endeavours, and are compared with early modern, modern and post-modern thought. Heller shows that modernity found in Shakespeare’s work a revelatory character which marked the end of both metaphysical system-building and a tragic reckoning with the accessibility of an absolute truth. Heller distinguishes the four stages found in constantly unique relation in Shakespeare’s work and probes their significance as time comes to fall out of joint and may again be set aright.