t. s. eliot, 1922 : "we must simply admit that here shakespeare tackled a problem which proved too much for him. why he attempted it at all is an insoluble puzzle; under compulsion of what experience he attempted to express the inexpressibly horrible, we cannot ever know. we need a great many facts in his biography; and we should like to know whether, and when, and after or at the same time as what personal experience, he read montaigne, ii. xii., "apologie de raimond sebond". we should have, finally, to know something which is by hypothesis unknowable, for we assume it to be an experience which, in the manner indicated, exceeded the facts. we should have to understand things which shakespeare did not understand himself." "hamlet and his problems", in "the sacred wood: essays on poetry and criticism".