ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that the network of character and, hence, narrative relationships William Shakespeare presents in the work functions as a kind of Lacanian sophism in its own right, one which temporalizes its subjects in a way that squares the role of time within the inter-subjective logic the text requires. Indeed, as Aristotle explains, raw temperature itself "determines the character like wine introduced in larger or smaller quantity into the body, it makes us persons of such and such a character. The politico-theological issue of the rival calendars was a heavily contested issue in early modern England, a condition aggravated by Elizabeth's stubborn adherence to the increasingly imprecise Old Style calendar. However, Renaissance humoral theory suggests that these diagnoses too be seen as of a piece both with Michael Cassio's 'infirmity' at his wine and the depressive remorse that attends it.
