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

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.

Like all romantic thinkers, Orsino sees desire as an object/subject relationship exclusively; he systematically short-circuits the third dimension, the mimetic model/obstacle/rival that makes everything intelligible. This is an especially tempting illusion in cases of pseudonarcissism, when all roles are played by the same individual.

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.

always marvel at the naive compulsion that forces these people to divulge the very truth they are trying to hide, but we ourselves will make the same mistake at the first opportunity.

In that no-man’s-land it becomes impossible to define anything. All actions and motivations are their own opposites as well as themselves.

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.

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.