ABSTRACT
The splendours of Shakespeare are vast and inexhaustible; but there are some elements in his work which are not, which, by its very nature, cannot be, the fine pieces of realistic exactitude to which his idolaters have raised them. The Shakespearian world does not exactly reflect the appearances of human or natural life. The events in his world are often strange to the point of impossibility. This chapter shows that Tolstoy's attacks on Shakespeare, often perfectly justifiable within limits, are yet based on a fundamental misunderstanding of his art; but that such misunderstanding is nevertheless extremely significant and valuable, since it forces our appreciation and interpretation from excessive psychologies of ‘character’, which run to waste over a wide expanse of theory, into legitimate channels of inquiry into the true substance and solidity of Shakespeare’s dramatic poetry. It also proves that Tolstoy’s further objection to Shakespeare’s lack of any religious essence in his work is quite without foundation.
