Home “Disjoint and Out of Frame”: Hamlet and the Problem of Synchrony
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

“Disjoint and Out of Frame”: Hamlet and the Problem of Synchrony

  • Johannes Schlegel EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: June 12, 2018
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Abstract

Hamlet stages problems of immanent synchrony that can be described as both motor and product of specific temporalities. By contemplating different timelines and even problematising the notion of linear time itself, Shakespeare’s tragedy illustrates that de/synchronisation relies on cultural techniques, which, in the context of the play, consist of the basic operations of calculating, representing, and commanding. At the same time, however, synchronisation proves to be inevitably recursive as it always already necessitates further operations. As this reading of Hamlet shows, the relevance of cultural techniques becomes apparent when it is understood as a heterogeneous arrangement in which technical-practical, aesthetic, symbolic, and political concepts interact.


Corresponding author: Dr. Johannes Schlegel, English Literature and Cultural Studies, Julius-Maximilians-University Würzburg, Am Hubland, D-97070 Würzburg, Germany

Works Cited

Birth, Kevin (2013). “Calendars: Representational Homogeneity and Heterogenous Time.” Time & Society 22.2, 216–236.10.1177/0961463X11408251Search in Google Scholar

Blair, Ann and Devin Fitzgerald (2015). “A Revolution in Information?” Hamish Scott, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern European History, 1350–1750. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 244–259.Search in Google Scholar

Cardullo, Robert J. (2012). “The Delay of Polonius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.Neophilologus 96.3, 487–495.10.1007/s11061-011-9276-ySearch in Google Scholar

Charlton, Kenneth and Margaret Spufford (2002). “Literacy, Society and Education.” David Loewenstein and Janel Mueller, eds. The Cambridge History of Early Modern English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 15–22.10.1017/CHOL9780521631563.003Search in Google Scholar

Charnes, Linda (2007). “Reading for Wormholes: Mirco-Periods From the Future.” Early Modern Culture 6 <http://emc.eserver.org/1-6/charnes.html.> (February 3, 2018).Search in Google Scholar

Cummings, Brian (2012). “‘Dead March’: Liturgy and Mimesis in Shakespeare’s Funerals.” Shakespeare 8.4, 368–385.10.1080/17450918.2012.731708Search in Google Scholar

Dasent, John Roche, ed. (1895). Acts of the Privy Council of England: Volume 10, 1577–1578. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode.Search in Google Scholar

De Grazia, Margreta (2007). Hamlet without Hamlet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Engell, Lorenz and Bernhard Siegert (2014). “Editorial.” Zeitschrift für Medien und Kulturforschung: Schwerpunkt Synchronisation 5.2, 177–181.10.28937/ZMK-5-2Search in Google Scholar

Galison, Peter (2003). Einstein’s Clock, Poincare’s Maps: Empires of Time. New York, NY: W.W. Norton.Search in Google Scholar

Gamper, Michael and Helmut Hühn (2014a). “Einleitung.” Michael Gamper and Helmut Hühn, eds. Zeit der Darstellung. Ästhetische Eigenzeiten in Kunst, Literatur und Wissenschaft. Hannover: Wehrhahn, 7–23.Search in Google Scholar

Gamper, Michael and Helmut Hühn (2014b). Was sind Ästhetische Eigenzeiten? Hannover: Wehrhahn.Search in Google Scholar

Garber, Majorie (1997). “Out of Joint.” David Hillman and Carla Mazzio, eds. The Body in Parts: Fantasies of Corporeality in Early Modern Europe. New York, NY: Routledge, 23–52.Search in Google Scholar

Ghose, Indira (2010). “Jesting With Death: Hamlet in the Graveyard.” Textual Practice 24.6, 1003–1018.10.1080/0950236X.2010.521668Search in Google Scholar

Greenblatt, Stephen, ed. (2016). The Norton Shakespeare. Third edition. New York, NY: W.W. Norton.Search in Google Scholar

Harris, Jonathan Gil (2009). Untimely Matter in the Time of Shakespeare. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.10.9783/9780812202205Search in Google Scholar

Hillier, Russel M. (2014). “Hamlet the Rough-Hewer: Moral Agency and the Consolations of Reformation Thought.” Patrick Gray and John D. Cox, eds. Shakespeare and Renaissance Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 159–185.10.1017/CBO9781107786158.011Search in Google Scholar

Hobbes, Thomas (1998). Leviathan. Ed. J. C. A. Gascin. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Jackson, R.L.P. (2016). “Setting the Time Right in Shakespeare’s Denmark.” The Cambridge Quarterly 45.4, 323–342.10.1093/camqtly/bfw020Search in Google Scholar

Kassung, Christian and Thomas Macho (2013). “Einleitung.” Christian Kassung and Thomas Macho, eds. Kulturtechniken der Synchronisation. München: Fink, 9–21.10.30965/9783846748084_002Search in Google Scholar

Köbele, Susanne and Coralie Rippl (2015). “Narrative Synchronisierung: Theoretische Voraussetzungen und historische Modelle.” Susanne Köbele and Coralie Rippl, eds. Gleichzeitigkeit: Narrative Synchronisierung in der Literatur des Mittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 7–25.Search in Google Scholar

Lees-Jeffries, Hester (2013). Shakespeare and Memory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Lewis, Sarah (2014). “Shakespeare, Time, Theory.” Literature Compass 11.4, 246–257.10.1111/lic3.12135Search in Google Scholar

Lewis, Rhodri (2016). “Young Hamlet.” Times Literary Supplement 5914, 15–17.Search in Google Scholar

Luhmann, Niklas (1990). “Gleichzeitigkeit und Synchronisation.” Soziologische Aufklärung 5: Konstruktivistische Perspektiven. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 95–130.10.1007/978-3-322-97005-3_5Search in Google Scholar

Macho, Thomas (2005). “Zeitrechnung und Kalenderreform: Arithmetische oder geometrische Paradigmen der Visualisierung von Zeit.” Jochen Brüning and Eberhard Knobloch, eds. Die mathematischen Wurzeln der Kultur. Mathematische Innovationen und ihre Folgen. München: Fink, 17–41.Search in Google Scholar

Macho, Thomas (2008). “Zeit und Zahl: Kalender- und Zeitrechnung als Kulturtechnik.” Sybille Krämer and Horst Bredekamp, eds. Bild – Schrift – Zahl. München: Fink, 179–192.Search in Google Scholar

Macho, Thomas (2013). “Befehlen: Kulturtechniken der Sozialen Synchronisation.” Christian Kassung and Thomas Macho, eds. Kulturtechniken der Synchronisation. München: Fink, 57–74.10.30965/9783846748084_004Search in Google Scholar

Marius, John (1651). Advice Concerning Bills of Exchange. London: I.G.Search in Google Scholar

Munro, Lucy (2012). “Archaism, the ‘Middle Ages’ and the Morality Play in Shakespearean Drama.” Shakespeare 8.4, 356–367.10.1080/17450918.2012.731704Search in Google Scholar

Northway, Kara (2016). “‘Bid the Players Make Haste’: Speed-Making and Motion Sickness in Hamlet.” Shakespeare Studies 44, 263–290.Search in Google Scholar

Nowotny, Helga (1993). Eigenzeiten: Zur Strukturierung eines Zeitgefühls. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp.Search in Google Scholar

Poole, Robert (1990). Time’s Alteration: Calendar Reform in Early Modern England. London: UCL Press.Search in Google Scholar

Richards, E. P. (1998). Mapping Time: The Calendar and its History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780198504139.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Rosa, Hartmut (2013). Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity. Transl. Jonathan Trejo-Mathys. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.10.7312/rosa14834Search in Google Scholar

Schlegel, Johannes (2016). “‘Minded Like the Weather, Most Unquietly’: Inquietude, Nature, and King Lear.” Shakespeare Seminar 14, 36–49.Search in Google Scholar

Schwyzer, Philip (2016). “‘Most out of Order’: Preposterous Time in the Mirror for Magistrates and Shakespeare’s Histories.” Harriet Archer and Andrew Hadfield, eds. A Mirror for Magistrates in Context: Literature, History, and Politics in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 231–245.10.1017/CBO9781316219768.014Search in Google Scholar

Smyth, Adam (2010). Autobiography in Early Modern Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Spevack, Marvin (1970). A Complete and Systematic Concordance to the Works of Shakespeare. Hildesheim: Olms.Search in Google Scholar

Stone, Lawrence (1980). “The Age of Admission to College in Seventeenth-Century England.” History of Education 9.2, 97–99.10.1080/0046760800090201Search in Google Scholar

Thomas, Keith (1987). “Numeracy in Early Modern England.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 37, 103–132.10.1017/S0080440100018880Search in Google Scholar

Wald, Christina (2012). “‘Medieval Shakespeare?’ Introduction.” Shakespeare 8.4, 351–355.10.1080/17450918.2012.731703Search in Google Scholar

Westman, Robert S. (1980). “The Astronomer’s Role in the Sixteenth Century: A Preliminary Study.” History of Science 18.2, 105–147.10.1177/007327538001800202Search in Google Scholar

Yandell, Cathy M. (2000). Carpe Corpus: Time and Gender in Early Modern France. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press.Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2018-06-12
Published in Print: 2018-06-27

©2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 17.10.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/zaa-2018-0019/html
Scroll to top button