Pffft. Tolstoy’s essay is basically one non-native English speaker’s reaction to a dramatic genre from an unfamiliar place and time. He doesn’t get it and he doesn’t like it. In particular, he objects to what he considers the immorality of Shakespeare’s work (“their tendency is of the lowest and most immoral […] The fundamental inner cause of Shakespeare’s fame was and is this: that his dramas […] corresponded to the irreligious and immoral frame of mind of the upper classes of his time.”)
Okay. Tastes differ, and nobody’s required to like or admire Shakespeare just because he’s widely regarded as a literary titan. However, explaining why you personally don’t admire Shakespeare doesn’t count as any kind of objective refutation or rebuttal of his reputation as a literary titan. Not even if you’re Leo Tolstoy.
Tolstoy’s opinion of Shakespeare, as an objective assessment, is worth just about as much as his assessment of Darwin in the same essay:
Wihle I completely agree with you regarding Tolstoy’s issues with Shakespeare, he was correct regarding Darwin, Hegel, and Comte being replaced by Neitzche. It may seem strange today, but everything from culture to science in the early 20th century was heavily (and indirectly) influenced by Nietzche, often in awesomely stupid ways.
In fact, it’s interesting that this came up, because Shaw was a part of that nonsense. It’s largely forgotten now, partly because it was basically stomped on heavily post-WW2, and in English-speaking literature Chesterton may be less famous than Shaw, but he won the argument and Shaw did not, and won it so fully that most of Shaw’s views are simply not remembered at all.
But Tolstoy wasn’t just claiming that a current craze for Nietzsche was temporarily swamping the recognition due to other thinkers. Rather, he was claiming that the respect accorded thinkers like Hegel, Comte and Darwin was essentially nothing but a temporary intellectual fad which was now on the point of oblivion.
Again, if Tolstoy personally doesn’t think much of Hegel, Comte or Darwin, or Shakespeare for that matter, that’s fine with me. But I think his criticisms show that his ability to judge intellectual heft or staying power was not his best feature.
See, I’d have said that about Shaw. Tastes differ.
As a lighting guy, I looked at it, and thought it was pretty in a very abstract, indulgent, modern dance kind of way. I’d be at a loss to try to tell that story through Midsummer, though. Pretty is all well and good, but you have to support the story being told, not try to drown it out with your own cleverness.
Oh, who reviewed it in the NYT? Isherwood, I think. I got the definite feeling from his review that he thought it was terrible but was too polite to say so in as many words.
Kenm, I can’t even imagine how badly someone would have to fuck up a production of A Comedy of Errors to make it pretentious.
Or you could do what my high school teacher did and tell us we’re watching the Playboy version of Macbeth.
Mind you, there was nothing Playboy-like in the entire movie and you never would have known it was produced by Playboy without being told, but hell, it made the boys pay attention!
There was a production of Taming of the Shrew set in the Old West that I saw about 15 years ago. Sixguns and ten gallon hats, and exagerated “Howdy pardner” accents.
Plenty of people are pretentious about Shakespeare, OK. And he’s certainly dated. I sympathize with anyone who comes to the conclusion that struggling to cobble together an understanding of the archaic language and defunct cultural allusions sucks any potential enjoyment out of Shakespeare.
But saying Shakespeare’s work is pretentious is silly. It’s like saying Tim Minchin’s work is pretentious, because he likes to play with language and make clever observations and uses poetry. So what - he still goes back to the lyric, “Fuck I love boobs though,” a sentiment Shakespeare also expresses, in somewhat different words.
O, would that the playful bard were here
To rebut such claims from a stinkard’s rear.
Not with a brutish boot to the butt,
But clever words to keep his anus shut.
What do Shakespeare and his admirers and NASCAR have in common?
This Kenm likes to make broad and goofy statements. Im not a NASCAR fan but the actual racing part of NASCAR takes skill and strategy. Just because Kenm doesnt get it doesnt mean that it isnt there.
Tastes differ.
o:o