{"product_id":"tolstoy-on-shakespeare-leo-tolstoy-9781989708460","title":"Tolstoy on Shakespeare: A Critical Essay on Shakespeare","description":"\u003cp\u003eLeo Tolstoy, 1906: \"I remember the astonishment I felt when I first read Shakespeare. I expected to receive a powerful aesthetic pleasure, but having read, one after the other, works regarded as his best: \"King Lear,\" \"Romeo and Juliet,\" \"Hamlet\" and \"Macbeth,\" not only did I feel no delight, but I felt an irresistible repulsion and tedium... Several times I read the dramas and the comedies and historical plays, and I invariably underwent the same feelings: repulsion, weariness, and bewilderment. At the present time, before writing this preface, being desirous once more to test myself, I have, as an old man of seventy-five, again read the whole of Shakespeare, including the historical plays, the \"Henrys,\" \"Troilus and Cressida,\" \"The Tempest\", \"Cymbeline\", and I have felt, with 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.\" Tolstoy on Shakespeare\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Leo Tolstoy\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1989708463\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781989708460\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Binker North\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/01\/1906\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 104\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.33lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.22d","brand":"Leo Tolstoy","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":43941077549311,"sku":"9781989708460","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/products\/img_cbeed100-c948-43af-bec5-cabaa9218341.jpg?v=1681450776","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/tolstoy-on-shakespeare-leo-tolstoy-9781989708460","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}