ABSTRACT
Tolstoy’s pamphlets are the least-known part of his work, and his attack on Shakespeare is not even an easy document to get hold of, at any rate in an English translation. Tolstoy’s final verdict on Lear is that no unhypnotized observer, if such an observer existed, could read it to the end with any feeling except “aversion and weariness.” The Germans chose to elevate Shakespeare because, at a time when there was no German drama worth speaking about and French classical literature was beginning to seem frigid and artificial, they were captivated by Shakespeare’s “clever development of scenes” and also found in him a good expression of their own attitude towards life. One of the first things an English reader would notice in Tolstoy’s pamphlet is that it hardly deals with Shakespeare as a poet. Shakespeare is treated as a dramatist, and in so far as his popularity is not spurious.
