Absolutely insane lines to just drop in the middle of an academic text btw. Feeling so normal about this.
[ A Critical History of English Literature, Vol. 1, Prof. David Daiches, first published in 1960 ]
“…When Hamlet’s whole nature was outraged by his mother’s behavior and then by the news of his father’s murder, he naturally felt that something must be done. But what? What could be done that would make any difference—any difference at all to the things that really mattered? Would a dagger through Claudius’ ribs restore Hamlet’s shattered universe? Would it restore his earlier idealized image of his mother or remove the "blister” that had been set on his innocent love? This is a tragedy of moral frustration. What are you going to do about past crimes which have shattered your preconceptions about the nature of life? There is nothing you can ever do about the past, except forget it. And yet, of course, Hamlet could not forget. Revenge is no real help—what sort of action, then, is of help? None that is directed towards undoing the past: only purposive action directed towards the future can ever help. And that is at least one explanation of Hamlet’s long delay in carrying out the ghost’s command: he wanted action that would undo the past, and no action could do that, revenge least of all, for that would only re-enact the past.
The punishment can never fit the crime, for it can never undo it.“
