Lear Tolstoy And The Fool, George Orwell
Tolstoy’s pamphlets are the least-known part of his work, and his attack on Shakespeare [Note, below] is not even an easy document to get hold of, at any rate in an English translation. Perhaps, therefore, it will be useful if I give a summary of the pamphlet before trying to discuss it.
[Note: SHAKESPEARE AND THE DRAMA. Written about 1903 as an introduction to another pamphlet, SHAKESPEARE AND THE WORKING CLASSES, by Ernest Crosby. (Author’s footnote)]
Tolstoy begins by saying that throughout life Shakespeare has aroused in him «an irresistible repulsion and tedium». Conscious that the opinion of the civilized world is against him, he has made one attempt after another on Shakespeare’s works, reading and re-reading them in Russian, English and German; but «I invariably underwent the same feelings; repulsion, weariness and bewilderment». Now, at the age of seventy-five, he has once again re-read the entire works of Shakespeare, including the historical plays, and I have felt with an even greater force, the same feelings—this time, however, not of bewilderment, but of firm, indubitable conviction that the unquestionable glory of a great genius which Shakespeare enjoys, and which compels writers of our time to imitate him and readers and spectators to discover in him non-existent merits—thereby distorting their aesthetic and ethical understanding—is a great evil, as is every untruth.
Shakespeare, Tolstoy adds, is not merely no genius, but is not even «an average author», and in order to demonstrate this fact he will examine KING LEAR, which, as he is able to show by quotations from Hazlitt, Brandes and others, has been extravagantly praised and can be taken as an example of Shakespeare’s best work.
Tolstoy then makes a sort of exposition of the plot of KING LEAR, finding it at every step to be stupid, verbose, unnatural, unintelligible, bombastic, vulgar, tedious and full of incredible events, «wild ravings», «mirthless jokes», anachronisms, irrelevaricies, obscenities, worn-out stage conventions and other faults both moral and aesthetic. LEAR is, in any case, a plagiarism of an earlier and much better play, KING LEIR, by an unknown author, which Shakespeare stole and then ruined. It is worth quoting a specimen paragraph to illustrate the manner in which Tolstoy goes to work. Act III, Scene 2 (in which Lear, Kent and the Fool are together in the storm) is summarized thus:
Lear walks about the heath and says word which are meant to express his despair: he desires that the winds should blow so hard that they (the winds) should crack their cheeks and that the rain should fiood everything, that lightning should singe his white bead, and the thunder flatten the world and destroy all germs «that make ungrateful man»! The fool keeps uttering still more senseless words. Enter Kent: Lear says that for some reason during this storm all criminals shall be found out and convicted. Kent, still unrecognized by Lear, endeavours to persuade him to take refuge in a hovel. At this point the fool utters a prophecy in no wise related to the situation and they all depart.
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». And exactly the same is true of «all the other extolled dramas of Shakespeare, not to mention the senseless dramatized tales, PERICLES, TWELFTH NIGHT, THE TEMPEST, CYMBELINE, TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.»
Having dealt with Lear Tolstoy draws up a more general indictment against Shakespeare. He finds that Shakespeare has a certain technical skill which is partly traceable to his having been an actor, but otherwise no merits whatever. He has no power of delineating character or of making words, and actions spring naturally out of situations, Us language is uniformly exaggerated and ridiculous, he constantly thrusts his own random thoughts into the mouth of any character who happens to be handy, he displays a «complete absence of aesthetic feeling», and his words «have nothing whatever in common with art and poetry».
«Shakespeare might have been whatever you like,» Tolstoy concludes, «but he was not an artist.» Moreover, his opinions are not original or interesting, and his tendency is «of the lowest and most immoral». Curiously enough, Tolstoy does not base this last judgement on Shakespeare’s own utterances, but on the statements of two critics, Gervinus and Brandes. According to Gervinus (or at any, rate Tolstoy’s reading of Gervinus) «Shakespeare taught. . . THAT ONE MAY BE TOO GOOD», while according to Brandes: «Shakespeare’s fundamental principle. . . is that THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS.» Tolstoy adds on his own account that Shakespeare was a jingo patriot of the worst type, but apart from this he considers that Gervinus and Brandes have given a true and adequate description of Shakespeare’s view of life.
Tolstoy then recapitulates in a few paragraphs the theory of art which he had expressed at greater length elsewhere. Put still more shortly, it amounts to a demand for dignity of subject matter, sincerity, and good craftsmanships. A great work of art must deal with some subject which is «important to the life of mankind», it must express someting which the author genuinely feels, and it must use such technical methods as will produce the desired effect. As Shakespeare is debased in outlook, slipshod in execution and incapable of being sincere even for a moment, he obviously stands condemned.
But here there arises a difficult question. If Shakespeare is all that Tolstoy has shown him to be, how did he ever come to be so generally admired? Evidently the answer can only lie in a sort of mass hypnosis, or «epidemic suggestion». The whole civilized world has somehow been deluded into thinking Shakespeare a good writer, and even the plainest demonstration to the contrary makes no impression, because one is not dealing with a reasoned opinion but with something akin to religious faith. Throughout history, says Tolstoy, there has been an endless series of these «epidemic suggestions»—for example, the Crusades, the search for the Philosopher’s Stone, the craze for tulip growing which once swept over Holland, and so on and so forth. As a contemporary instance he cites, rather significantly, the Dreyfus case, over which the whole world grew violently excited for no sufficient reason. There are also sudden short-lived crazes for new political and philosophical theories, or for this or that writer, artist or scientist—for example, Darwin who (in 1903) is «beginning to be forgotten». And in some cases a quite worthless popular idol may remain in favour for centuries, for «it also happens that such crazes, having arisen in consequence of special reasons accidentally favouring their establishment correspond in such a degree to the views of life spread in society, and especially in literary circles, that they are maintained for a long time». Shakespeare’s plays have continued to be admired over a long period because «they corresponded to the irreligious and unmoral frame of mind of the upper classes of his time and ours».
As to the manner in which Shakespeare’s fame STARTED, Tolstoy explains it as having been «got up» by German professors towards the end of the eighteenth century. His reputation «originated in Germany, and thence was transferred to England». 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. Goethe pronounced Shakespeare a great poet, whereupon all the other critics flocked after him like a troop of parrots, and the general infatuation has lasted ever since. The result has been a further debasement of the drama—Tolstoy is careful to include his own plays when condemning the contemporary stage—and a further corruption of the prevailing moral outlook. It follows that «the false glorification of Shakespeare» is an important evil which Tolstoy feels it his duty to combat.
This, then, is the substance of Tolstoy’s pamphlet. One’s first feeling is that in describing Shakespeare as a bad writer he is saying something demonstrably untrue. But this is not the case. In reality there is no kind of evidence or argument by which one can show that Shakespeare, or any other writer, is «good». Nor is there any way of definitely proving that—for instance—Warwick Beeping is «bad». Ultimately there is no test of literary merit except survival, which is itself an index to majority opinion. Artistic theories such as Tolstoy’s are quite worthless, because they not only start out with arbitrary assumptions, but depend on vague terms («sincere», «important» and so forth) which can be interpreted in any way one chooses. Properly speaking one cannot ANSWER Tolstoy’s attack. The interesting question is: why did he make it? But it should be noticed in passing that he uses many weak or dishonest arguments. Some of these are worth pointing out, not because they invalidate his main charge but because they are, so to speak, evidence of malice.
To begin with, his examination of KING LEAR is not «impartial», as he twice claims. On the contrary, it is a prolonged exercise in misrepresentation. It is obvious that when you are summarizing KING LEAR for the benefit of someone who has not read it, you are not really being impartial if you introduce an important speech (Lear’s speech when Cordelia is dead in his arms) in this manner: «Again begin Lear’s awful ravings, at which one feels ashamed, as at unsuccessful jokes.» And in a long series of instances Tolstoy slightly alters or colours the passages he is
