A deconstruction of Hamlet's ontological metaphor—"the time is out of joint"—indicates Shakespeare has made an implicit commitment to a conception of time that is explicitly and systematically developed by Kant's transcendental philosophy. Consequently, a retro reading explains how Hamlet temporarily identifies with the Ghost's temporal-categorical mind-set, and how Hamlet, who has been acutely aware of the passage of time, loses track of time during the prayer/closet scene sequence. More specifically, I assert that Hamlet's identification with the Ghost's categorical sense of (...) what is possible and impossible in accordance with the passage of outer time is what causes his inaction. (shrink)

Busting the Hermenuetical Ghosts: Steering clear of pre-modern, Romantic, Freudian, and post-modern readings, DeCarlo asserts how Shakespeare's Hamlet text foreshadows the modern philosophical thought of Descartes, Kant, and Heidegger, particularly in regard to the intellectual issues of thought and doubt, time and action, and being and death.

Busting the Hermenuetical Ghosts: Steering clear of pre-modern, Romantic, Freudian, and post-modern readings, DeCarlo asserts how Shakespeare's Hamlet text foreshadows the modern philosophical thought of Descartes, Kant, and Heidegger, particularly in regard to the intellectual issues of thought and doubt, time and action, and being and death.

Contrary to Eliot’s charge that Hamlet is lacking in literary form, the philosophical form of the Cartesian Cogito, which Hamlet embodies in terms of the instability of the Cogito’s determined reason and determined madness, and complicates in terms of not having the theological backing that is offered to the Cogito’s philosophical “blind spot,” provides insight into Hamlet’s response to his mother’s sexual behavior. Correspondingly, Erikson’s insight that doubt is the brother of shame explains how Hamlet, burdened by his unguarded philosophical (...) doubts about the ontological and moral nature of the Ghost and its command of revenge, negatively projects his sense of shame into his perception of his mother’s behavior; thus filling the gap of Eliot’s objective correlative. (shrink)

Contrary to Eliot’s charge that Hamlet is lacking in literary form, the philosophical form of the Cartesian Cogito, which Hamlet embodies in terms of the instability of the Cogito’s determined reason and determined madness, and complicates in terms of not having the theological backing that is offered to the Cogito’s philosophical “blind spot,” provides insight into Hamlet’s response to his mother’s sexual behavior. Correspondingly, Erikson’s insight that doubt is the brother of shame explains how Hamlet, burdened by his unguarded philosophical (...) doubts about the ontological and moral nature of the Ghost and its command of revenge, negatively projects his sense of shame into his perception of his mother’s behavior; thus filling the gap of Eliot’s objective correlative. (shrink)

The paper addresses the question: why and how does Hamlet lose track of time in the Prayer-Closet scene sequence? While Deleuze aptly notes the poetic formula “the time is out of joint” is indicative of time no longer being subordinate to cyclical rhythms of nature, or as Polonius asserts: “Time is time”(II.ii.88), but rather movement being subordinated to time, it is argued that the HAMLET text goes further in its pre-figuration of Kant’s concept that time is a mysteriously autonomous form. (...) More specifically, it is explicated that in a Kantian sense Hamlet's temporary identification with the Ghost’s categorical sense of whatis possible and impossible in accordance with the passage of outer time is what causes Hamlet’s temporal confusion. (shrink)