An Immense Study on the Universal Philosophies of Shakespeare’s Plays

David Womersley’s ‘Thinking Through Shakespeare’ is a detailed examination of how humanity’s great questions center in the Bard’s plays.

David Womersley's "Thinking Through Shakespeare" defends reading Shakespeare as the great poet of human nature.

One of William Shakespeare’s famous literary lines proclaims, “All the world’s a stage.” David Womersley, the Thomas Warton professor of English literature at the University of Oxford, makes a different claim: All the world’s a classroom, and its professor is William Shakespeare.

There is no debate that the 16th-century playwright is one of history’s greatest writers, possibly its greatest. Shakespeare’s literary influence is practically on par with the Bible’s King James Version. But what of his moral and philosophic influence? Womersley, in his new book “Thinking Through Shakespeare,” makes it clear that Shakespeare’s plays plumb the depths of humanity much further than one would expect.

Along with being a professor at Oxford, Womersley is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Historical Society. As if those titles didn’t suggest he belongs to an elite group of literary thinkers, his new work certainly substantiates the suggestion. In “Thinking Through Shakespeare,” the English professor becomes the scientist, using his pen as a scalpel to peel back the many layers that encompass Shakespearean thought.

William Shakespeare, 1610, by John Taylor. In his new book "Thinking Through Shakespeare," David Womersley argues that Shakespeare's plays explore human nature with a depth beyond what most readers anticipate. Public Domain

‘Just Representations’

For Womersley, what can be learned about the world philosophically can be found in Shakespeare’s plays. The reason for this is that, as Womersley notes, the Bard, or at least his plays, was not shackled by traditional moral or intellectual constraints. “Shakespeare … seems to have had no settled opinions, despite overflowing with ideas,” the book notes.

Womersley indicated early in his book that the purpose of his work is to “reconnect Shakespeare’s plays to the abiding concerns of thoughtful people—concerns which … seem to have formed part of our ‘general nature’ since the earliest antiquity.” The author’s “general nature” quote is a reference to Samuel Johnson’s summary view of Shakespeare’s writings, which he viewed as “just representations of general nature.”

The Oxford professor presents these “just representations” in four exhaustively dissected chapters that examine identity, civilization, government, religion, and morality. Each chapter utilizes a Shakespearean play upon which to examine: “Othello,” “Hamlet,” “Macbeth,” and “King Lear.”

History’s Philosophies in Action

Although these four plays are foundational, they are not the only ones referenced in his chapters. Probably half of Shakespeare’s 37 (or 39) plays are referenced in the book to demonstrate various points. But it is not simply Shakespeare’s works that are examined or compared. Womersley presents an entire library of philosophical works from antiquity to the 20th century to exemplify Shakespeare’s intellectual depth.

The author makes the case that practically every political, moral, intellectual, and relational question can be studied in Shakespeare. The answers in the dramas, of course, are not always ideal. This is obvious if one has read the four aforementioned plays. But the solutions chosen by the characters, even the morally dubious or categorically evil, force the reader or audience member to wrestle with these important questions.

“‘King Lear,’ Act I, Scene I,” 1858, by American artist Edwin Austin Abbey. Womersley views King Lear as “a Kantian tragedy” that critiques moral absolutes. Public Domain

Aeschylus, Aristotle, Cicero, Francis Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Adam Smith, David Hume, Kant, Edmund Burke, Joseph Conrad, Goethe, Freud, and a long list of other literary and philosophical lights find their place in Womersley’s work to demonstrate how their thoughts and philosophies have been put into action via Shakespeare. Yes, even those who came after him. The implication that Shakespeare was thinking and presenting these ideas before some writers and philosophers thoroughly articulated them is part of the brilliance of Womersley’s study.

Individuality and Morality

Womersley’s first chapter entitled “Selves and Others: Othello” is a study of individuality—who we once were, who we want to be, and who we become. The chapter presents the philosophical reflections of Aristotle, Locke, Hume, and T.S. Eliot, along with the fictional moral dilemmas in the works of Goethe (“Elective Affinities”), Conrad (“Lord Jim”), and several Greek tragedies. The consequences of these dilemmas, whether self-inflicted or otherwise, tend to lead either to the character’s demise or some form of degradation. Womersley notes that Shakespeare’s works “take a complicated stance on the matter of identity” by presenting characters from various social backgrounds—from servants and soldiers to kings and princesses. It is through this plethora of characters that “these plays affirm a common humanity that is camouflaged, but not destroyed, by accidents of birth or wealth ... [and] affirm the reality and stability of individual identity.”

Additionally, in his final chapter, Womersley demonstrates the moral complexities between what is expedient (utile) and what is right (honestum) through his examinations of “King Lear” and “Measure for Measure.” The author explains that although these two plays are similar regarding “justice, law and sex, rule and relinquishing of rule,” they differ in one significant way: “King Lear” follows the moral dictates of Immanuel Kant, where right must triumph regardless of consequence, while “Measure for Measure” follows the Utilitarianism of John Stuart Mill, where the “legally and morally right must yield to what is good, judged by consequences.” One will notice that both of those philosophers came after Shakespeare. It is with these plays, along with several others, which, according to Womersley, may have been written concurrently, that “Shakespeare demonstrated his intellectual freedom by writing on both sides of a question.”

Shakespeare ‘For All Time’

“Thinking Through Shakespeare” is a brilliant study of the Bard’s work at a level one rarely, if ever, sees. Not only is the book a statement on Shakespeare’s importance concerning human thought, it is also a defense of the great English writer in an era when academics, specifically in the West, have attempted to belittle him and his works for rather arbitrary reasons.

Womersley addresses these “politically-minded theorists” straightaway in his introduction, stating:

“The migration of high theory from the social sciences to the literary humanities which occurred in the second half of the twentieth century temporarily drove from the field of literary criticism that well-established way of thinking about how and why great literature holds and rewards our attention.”

Womersley’s labor-intensive work is a declaration of Shakespeare’s genius, one that poet Ben Jonson made shortly after Shakespeare’s death. In the final pages of his book, Womersley repeats Jonson’s poetic description of Shakespeare and his work: “He was not of an age, but for all time!”

‘Thinking Through Shakespeare’

By David Womersley Princeton University Press: March 10, 2026 Hardcover, 432 pages

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