Tolstoy on Shakespeare

Leo Tolstoy's incendiary critique of Shakespeare takes aim at one of literature's most revered names and refuses to soften the blow. Framed by related responses from Ernest Crosby and G. Bernard Shaw, this volume turns a close reading of King Lear into a sweeping challenge to Shakespeare's dramatic genius, moral authority, and cultural prestige. Tolstoy insists that his rejection of Shakespeare came after decades of repeated attempts to admire the plays, only to find boredom, confusion, and repulsion where others found greatness. He gathers the lavish praise of critics to expose what he sees as a false consensus, then dismantles King Lear scene by scene: Gloucester's crude introduction, Lear's irrational division of his kingdom, Cordelia's banishment, Edmund's manipulations, the stocks, the storm, the mock trial, and Gloucester's blinding. Again and again, he condemns the dialogue as pompous, the emotions as exaggerated, and the characters as unnatural. Alongside this attack, he argues that Shakespeare's admirers mistake theatrical effect for truth, and that Homer, not Shakespeare, embodies genuine artistic unity, sincerity, and human depth. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.