Tolstoy On Shakespeare Part 10

"An haberdasher and a carpenter, A webbe, a deyer and tapiser,"

and the tales of the cook and the miller take rank with those of the squire and lawyer. The English Bible, too, was in Shakespeare's hands, and he must have been familiar with shepherd kings and fishermen-apostles. In the very year in which "Hamlet" first appeared, a work was published in Spain which was at once translated into English, a work as well known to-day as Shakespeare's own writings. If the peasantry was anywhere to be neglected and despised, where should it be rather than in proud, aristocratic Spain, and yet, to place beside Shakespeare's Bottoms and Slys, Cervantes has given us the admirable Sancho Panza, and has spread his loving humor in equal measure over servant and master. Are we to believe that the yeomen of England, who beat back the Armada, were inferior to the Spanish peasantry whom they overcame, or is it not rather true that the Spanish author had a deeper insight into his country's heart than was allotted to the English dramatist? Cervantes, the soldier and adventurer, rose above the prejudices of his cla.s.s, while Shakespeare never lifted his eyes beyond the narrow horizon of the Court to which he catered. It was love that opened Cervantes's eye, and it is in all-embracing love that Shakespeare was deficient. As far as the common people were concerned, he never held the mirror up to nature.

But the book of all others which might have suggested to Shakespeare that there was more in the claims of the lower cla.s.ses than was dreamt of in his philosophy was More's "Utopia," which in its English form was already a cla.s.sic. More, the richest and most powerful man in England after the king, not only believed in the workingman, but knew that he suffered from unjust social conditions. He could never have represented the down-trodden followers of Cade-Tyler nor the hungry mob in "Coriola.n.u.s" with the utter lack of sympathy which Shakespeare manifests. "What justice is there in this," asks the great Lord Chancellor, whose character stood the test of death--"what justice is there in this, that a n.o.bleman, a goldsmith, a banker, or any other man, that either does nothing at all or at best is employed in things that are of no use to the public, should live in great luxury and splendor upon what is so ill acquired; and a mean man, a carter, a smith, a plowman, that works harder even than the beasts themselves, and is employed on labors so necessary that no commonwealth could hold out a year without them, can only earn so poor a livelihood, and must lead so miserable a life, that the condition of the beasts is much better than theirs?"

How different from this is Shakespeare's conception of the place of the workingman in society! After a full and candid survey of his plays, Bottom, the weaver with the a.s.s's head, remains his type of the artizan and the "mutable, rank-scented many," his type of the ma.s.ses. Is it unfair to take the misshapen "servant-monster" Caliban as his last word on the subject?

"Prospero. We'll visit Caliban my slave who never Yields us kind answer.

Miranda. 'Tis a villain, sir, I do not love to look on.

Prospero. But as 'tis, We can not miss him! he does make our fire, Fetch in our wood, and serve in offices That profit us." (Tempest, Act 1, Sc. 2.)

To which I would fain reply in the words of Edward Carpenter:

"Who art thou ...

With thy faint sneer for him who wins thee bread And him who clothes thee, and for him who toils Day-long and night-long dark in the earth for thee?"

LETTER FROM MR. G. BERNARD SHAW

(Extracts)

As you know, I have striven hard to open English eyes to the emptiness of Shakespeare's philosophy, to the superficiality and second-handedness of his morality, to his weakness and incoherence as a thinker, to his sn.o.bbery, his vulgar prejudices, his ignorance, his disqualifications of all sorts for the philosophic eminence claimed for him.... The preface to my "Three Plays for Puritans" contains a section headed "Better than Shakespeare?" which is, I think, the only utterance of mine on the subject to be found in a book.... There is at present in the press a new preface to an old novel of mine called "The Irrational Knot." In that preface I define the first order in Literature as consisting of those works in which the author, instead of accepting the current morality and religion ready-made without any question as to their validity, writes from an original moral standpoint of his own, thereby making his book an original contribution to morals, religion, and sociology, as well as to _belles letters_. I place Shakespeare with d.i.c.kens, Scott, Dumas pere, etc., in the second order, because, tho they are enormously entertaining, their morality is ready-made; and I point out that the one play, "Hamlet," in which Shakespeare made an attempt to give as a hero one who was dissatisfied with the ready-made morality, is the one which has given the highest impression of his genius, altho Hamlet's revolt is unskillfully and inconclusively suggested and not worked out with any philosophic competence.[4]

May I suggest that you should be careful not to imply that Tolstoy's great Shakespearian heresy has no other support than mine. The preface of Nicholas Rowe to his edition of Shakespeare, and the various prefaces of Dr. Johnson contain, on Rowe's part, an apology for him as a writer with obvious and admitted shortcomings (very ridiculously ascribed by Rowe to his working by "a mere light of nature"), and, on Johnson's, a good deal of downright hard-hitting criticism. You should also look up the history of the Ireland forgeries, unless, as is very probable, Tolstoy has antic.i.p.ated you in this. Among nineteenth-century poets Byron and William Morris saw clearly that Shakespeare was enormously overrated intellectually. A French book, which has been translated into English, has appeared within the last ten years, giving Napoleon's opinions of the drama. His insistence on the superiority of Corneille to Shakespeare on the ground of Corneille's power of grasping a political situation, and of seeing men in their relation to the state, is interesting.

Of course you know about Voltaire's criticisms, which are the more noteworthy because Voltaire began with an extravagant admiration for Shakespeare, and got more and more bitter against him as he grew older and less disposed to accept artistic merit as a cover for philosophic deficiencies.

Finally, I, for one, shall value Tolstoy's criticism all the more because it is criticism of a foreigner who can not possibly be enchanted by the mere word-music which makes Shakespeare so irresistible in England.[5] In Tolstoy's estimation, Shakespeare must fall or stand as a thinker, in which capacity I do not think he will stand a moment's examination from so tremendously keen a critic and religious realist.

Unfortunately, the English wors.h.i.+p their great artists quite indiscriminately and abjectly; so that is quite impossible to make them understand that Shakespeare's extraordinary literary power, his fun, his mimicry, and the endearing qualities that earned him the t.i.tle of "the gentle Shakespeare"--all of which, whatever Tolstoy may say, are quite unquestionable facts--do not stand or fall with his absurd reputation as a thinker. Tolstoy will certainly treat that side of his reputation with the severity it deserves; and you will find that the English press will instantly announce that Tolstoy considers his own works greater than Shakespeare's (which in some respects they most certainly are, by the way), and that he has attempted to stigmatize our greatest poet as a liar, a thief, a forger, a murderer, an incendiary, a drunkard, a libertine, a fool, a madman, a coward, a vagabond, and even a man of questionable gentility. You must not be surprised or indignant at this: it is what is called "dramatic criticism" in England and America. Only a few of the best of our journalist-critics will say anything worth reading on the subject.

Yours faithfully, G. BERNARD SHAW.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Besides the prefaces here referred to, Mr. G. Bernard Shaw has at various times written other articles on the subject.--(V. T.)

[5] It should be borne in mind that this letter was written before Mr.

G. B. Shaw had seen the essay in question, by Tolstoy, now published in this volume.--(V. T.)

"No one will peruse a page without laying down the book a better and a wiser man."--_Dundee Courier._

Tolstoy's Essays and Letters

By LEO TOLSTOY

Translated by AYLMER MAUDE

This work contains twenty-six essays and letters (many published for the first time) belonging to the last fifteen years of Tolstoy's career, the period in which he has devoted himself exclusively to humanitarian labors.

Therefore each has a definite altruistic purpose. In the letters in particular we have, in the words of the translator, "Tolstoy's opinions in application to certain definite conditions. They thus help to bridge the gulf between theory and practise."

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Tolstoy's Plays

Also Annotated List of Works

This volume, a new translation by Louise and Aylmer Maude, contains Tolstoy's three great plays, together with the Russian folk-tale of which one of them is the dramatized version. It also includes a complete annotated and chronological list of Tolstoy's works of special helpfulness to all readers and students of the great Russian writer.

LIST OF THE PLAYS

=The Power of Darkness=; or, If a Claw is Caught the Bird is Lost--A drama in five acts.

=The First Distiller=--A comedy in six acts.

=Fruits of Culture=--A comedy in four acts.

INCLUDING ALSO

=The Imp and the Crust=--This is a Russian folk-tale, of which "The First Distiller" is the dramatized version.

=Their High Literary and Dramatic Value=

To their literary merit Tolstoy's plays add the quality of being excellent acting dramas, as their success both in Russia and elsewhere has abundantly shown. Mr. Laurence Irving lately wrote: "I suppose England is the only country in Europe where 'The Power of Darkness' has not been acted.

It ought to be done. It is a stupendous tragedy; the effect on the stage is unparalleled."

=Their Wide Range of Sentiment=