Theater Of Envy: William Shakespeare (Carthage reprint)

Thanks to the notion of strategy, men can postpone revenge indefinitely without ever giving it up. They are equally terrified by both radical solutions and go

Literary genius spontaneously understands the mimetic substratum of mythology and provides

Max Weber’s interpretation is rooted in Nietzsche’s reading of Judeo-Christianity as the resentment (ressentiment) of the weak against the strong, the slaves against their masters, the victims against their persecutors. The literal madness of Nietzsche’s attitude is that, close as he was to recognizing the truth of human culture, he willfully espou

This victim’s death reveals not only the violence and injustice of all sacrificial cults, but the nonviolence and justice of the divinity whose will is thus fully accomplished for the first and only time in history.

to collapse, and Shakespeare is a major witness to that event. Even after the disappearance of blood feuds, duels, and similar customs, Christian culture never disentangled itself completely from values rooted in revenge. Although nominally Christian, social attitudes remained essentially alien to the authentic Judeo-Christian inspiration.

and fulfillment would not turn to ashes.

satisfaction of the few is obtained at the expense of the many. The real scapegoat now is the mass audience in a reversal that has become the rule in modern literature.

the illusion of unmediated desire is shattered. If this desire were truly unmediated, it would not be diminished by the continuous enjoyment of its object;

Thus imitation is a double-edged sword. At times it produces so much harmony that it can pass for the blandest and dullest of all human drives; at other times it produces so much strife that we refuse to recognize it as imitation.