Explore the theme of justice in Shakespeare's Hamlet with reference to Middleton's The Revenger's Tragedy.

Juxtaposing sources for a supreme set of laws creates tension within the plot as Shakespeare critiques different methods of achieving justice. The state acts as an obstacle to justice when Hamlet seeks blood revenge on King Claudius. In act four Claudius claims, ‘revenge should have no bounds’, meaning certain circumstances allow civil law to be circumvented. The verb ‘bounds’ implies an opposing force to human will, and therefore revenge is something naturally desired. Perhaps relating to contemporary debates about “wild justice” and Elizabeth I’s increasing monopoly over the civil justice, Claudius’ earlier claim that ‘the corrupted currents of this world… may shove by justice’ presents a state which can abuse its position by passing and neglecting arbitrarily based laws. Rather, Shakespeare poses an absolute, unchanging set of laws to unify civil and wild courses of justice – the source of which is still ambivalent. A religious basis presents its own contractions between the divine right of kings and the need to commit regicide to eradicate evil. Edwards describes Hamlet’s task as ‘a killing that will re-baptise Denmark’, identifying themes of decay and religious purification. He could go further, however, to suggest that Hamlet’s turmoil is intensified by Claudius’ lament that ‘such a divinity doth hedge a King’ and his father’s satanic description of Claudius as ‘a serpent [who] stung me’. The Revenger’s Tragedy’s protagonist, Vindice, conversely holds no faith to the sanctity of royalty, claiming ‘a slavish Duke is baser than his slaves’. Middleton arguably avoids his own persecution from the unpopular James I with the Vindice’s execution. One could strongly argue that whilst the state can manipulate the law, given both plays end in the death of all royal characters, its abuse poses a risk of cyclical violence and self-destruction.