ABSTRACT
Shakespeare insistently reminds us of an ungovernable complexity some minds prefer to forget. This chapter discusses thinking in and with Shakespeare to be all about identity and selfhood. Gabriel Josipovici observes that when we see or read a Shakespeare play we 'experience far more than our critical or philosophical vocabulary seems able to articulate'. When Shakespeare calls his rhyme 'pow'rful', he signals awareness that his words may be invidious — but he says them nonetheless. Shakespeare goes out of his way to make us feel the theatricality, the contrived character of this denouement. Anyone but Shakespeare having come up with as profound a notion as that he gives to Hippolyta or to Cleopatra would have taken a rest, and then set about corroborating the new insight. It is as if Shakespeare can retain sympathy for the Dolabellas of this world amidst the heady atmosphere of Cleopatra's philosophic vision.
