ABSTRACT
A metaphysical reading of Shakespeare is asking how his texts may inform our lives when we expect to find, in his dramas and poems, presentations of human problems which we consider to be deep and fundamental, how interpreting him may have an effect on our very being. This chapter, taking Macbeth as an example, first outlines the method of such a reading: a serious, “big” question (here the question of time), studied with the help of close-reading (a linguistic “onset”), supplemented by a “coda”, made up of personal meaning. This is offered from a Wittgensteinean perspective, as he is interpreted by Stanley Cavell. Finally, also positioning this approach with respect to New Historicism and Cultural Materialism, some old and new “metaphysical readers” of Shakespeare (Schelling, Coleridge, Bradley, G. Wilson Knight, Michael Witmore and Tzachi Zamir) are presented.
