>"Open Shakespeare," I used to say to these admirers, "wherever you like, or wherever it may chance, you will see that you will never find ten consecutive lines which are comprehensible, unartificial, natural to the character that says them, and which produce an artistic impression." (This experiment may be made by any one. And either at random, or according to their own choice.) Shakespeare's admirers opened pages in Shakespeare's dramas, and without paying any attention to my criticisms as to why the selected ten lines did not satisfy the most elementary demands of esthetic and common sense, they were enchanted with the very thing which to me appeared absurd, incomprehensible, and inartistic
Was Tolstoy right? Can anyone here rise to the challenge and post ten consecutive lines that are comprehensible, unartificial, natural to the character and produce an artistic impression?
Parker Perry
No. When the critic sets the goalposts, the argument is doomed. "Comprehensible" depends on the reader. "Unartifical" doesn't mean a fucking thing objectively. "Natural to the character" is an opinion by someone arguing with both the fucking author and the tradition of the time. "Produce an artistic impression" should make Tolstoy ashamed to even say out loud. This is subjective bullshit, more easily summed up as "My background, era, tastes, language and priorities are so wildly different from Shakespeare's that I can neither appreciate nor enjoy him."
Ethan Robinson
People don't speak in ten lines. Or even three.
Jordan Jackson
I can post sublime lines that Tolstoy could never dream of matching, and it would be like arguing logic with someone religious: "No, this is artificial shit; the Duke wouldn't talk like that even though he does throughout the play," etc.
Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile, Hath not old custom made this life more sweet Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods More free from peril than the envious court? Here feel we not the penalty of Adam, The seasons' difference; as the icy fang And churlish chiding of the winter's wind, Which when it bites and blows upon my body, Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say 'This is no flattery; these are counsellors That feelingly persuade me what I am.' Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything. I would not change it.
As You Like It (Act II, Scene 1)
Lucas Perry
>implying Tolstoy's representation of a distraught Anna was anything other than stale and absurd
who gives a shit what that slave rapist thinks about the GOAT?
Gabriel Hill
>No, this is artificial shit; the Duke wouldn't talk like that even though he does throughout the play The thing you posted later can be interpreted as the rendering of a "stream of consciousness" that the character felt/thought at that moment.
These two lines should be condensed into one. >The seasons' difference; as the icy fang >And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
In plays, you talk your thoughts and feelings as if everyone were telepathic. Everything is in character, there's no narrator.
Justin Ross
I think the problem is that nobody ever speaks like that, or has spoken like that. When talking people hardly ever speak in these outrageous metaphors or poetic statements. It is difficult to be immersed in what's going on, difficult to suspend your disbelief when everyone talks so outrageously and unrealistically. It can make for decent poetry but awful drama. Nobody would say things like "churlish chiding of the winter's wind" or "finds tongue in trees" etc.
And I feel like your quote really proves another of Tolstoy's criticisms, that Shakespeare's characters do not have individuality of language; the way they speak does not distinguish them in any way. This kind of thing could be said by pretty much any of the characters; they all speak alike.
Juan Moore
Was Tolstoy incapable of understanding poetry?
Hunter Diaz
But you are presupposing that Shakespeare was portraying reality as it is. And in reality, language as it is, is very limited in communicating efficiantly and transcendentally.
Justin Phillips
If you think Shakespeare's plays are supposed to be true to actual social circumstance you're even more retarded that Tolstoy. Theatre is an artifice through which we reframe/stylise/mediate "reality" for a more beautiful/fruitful/your adjective here product.
All renaissance theatre is explicitly responding to ancient texts so there's a deeper interaction between discourses that complicates historicising any social "reality" they ought to be keeping to anyway.
Tolstoy is too busy writing bourgeois romantic sentimental tripe that revolves around a particular kind of boring sociality that Shakespeare's subtlety is anathema to.
Michael Torres
>you will never find ten consecutive lines which are comprehensible, [unartificial], natural to the character that says them
There's the rub. He wasn't writing to be natural and real. He's writing to show of on stage, to enchant the audience and better his peers. In Tolstoy's time that's already a passed fad. His eras stage is more grounded, and there is no room for Shakespearesque.
I've no problem with ether of them, they're both high on my pedestal, at the same time I see nothing wrong in Tolstoy disliking Shakespeare. It's actually refreshing. We'd come nowhere if everyone liked everything and nobody would dare and criticise what's popular and considered godly. Unfortunately that's the way present academia is built upon. You criticise, and you're ostracised, so everyone is ether ignoring his disliked subjects, or they're kissing everything that's on their way.
Jaxon Ramirez
A biting criticism from the second greatest author of all time
Connor Carter
>I think the problem is that nobody ever speaks like that, or has spoken like that.
Courtiers did. Or at least they did something quite similar. I'm not completely familiar with English side, but France was notorious for their court etiquette, and eloquence of talk among them was unrivalled today. You must know that it was the single most important thing in the court. Wealth was made by being the best talker. Nothing was as important, so it evolved to ridiculous heights.
Cooper Turner
Imagine being so much of a pleb that you think realism is the height of art.
Jackson Torres
It's not that utter realism is essential in every respect. But Shakespeare's characters speak so unnaturally and unrealistically, in every circumstance, that it is impossible to become immersed in his dramas.
Anthony Howard
See , and then get out.
Luis Thompson
No, it's not. Millions of people have become immersed in his dramas for several centuries now. And "realism" is partly selective cultural blindness. If you can get immersed in a film (virtually any period piece) and ignore the idiotically modern haircuts the men have, the way they're speaking, the anachronistic social viewpoints, etc., it's because you are used to the stylistic conventions of the form and tradition. Tolstoy's criticism is no more insightful than someone who can't stand musicals or opera because people don't break into song to express their feelings in normal life.
Juan Lopez
Tolstoy didn't understand the Shakespearean aesthetic. That he mistakes his own deficiencies as those of Shakespeare reveals him as a brainlet.
Jose Lopez
>the way they speak does not distinguish them in any way The fuck? Shakespeare literally has noble characters speaking in blank verse featuring iambic pentameter to make their position clear, while commoners speak in prose. This is true, too, of nobles who are acting like commoners--whether they're involved in evil schemes, losing their minds, or are drunk. Look at Othello. When Iago is speaking to his peers or to those in position of authority over them, his speech is in verse, but when he is plotting and talking to Roderigo (especially at the play's beginning), his lines are not in iambic pentameter--this represents the bawdy nature of his speech and, in truth, the baseness of his character.
