‘T’is their love and duty’: Reciprocity, the Good Heir, and Kairotic Temporality in James Shirley’s The Politician (research paper)

David Hasberg Zirak-Schmidt

In this article, I am interested in the temporal dynamics of The Politician, and how they relate to the political engagement with the reciprocity of kingship in the play. More specifically, I am interested in analysing the dramatic structure and rhetoric of The Politician through the lens of the ancient Greek notion of kairós (καιρός). A polysemous word, kairós was the ancient Greek word for the right or opportune moment, and it was one of the two words that the ancient Greeks had for time, the other being chrónos (χρόνος), chronological or sequential time. Kairós was theorised within a variety of discourses in Classical Greece, and it subsequently played a significant role for the early modern period, especially within the fields of theology, rhetoric, and political theory. The common denominator of all three fields is the idea that an individual must recognize and seize the opportune moment and act accordingly in order to achieve a specific goal. The ability to recognize and seize kairós is what characterises the faithful, the good rhetorician, and the good statesman – exemplified by the Machiavellian notions of virtù and occasione. By examining the kairotic temporality of The Politician, it becomes possible to analyse how Shirley accomplishes to integrate and balance the political theology of divine right and Machiavellianism while simultaneously healing the strained relationship between the king and the people.