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To add to the critiques of Tolstoy's critiques, it must be remembered that Shakespeare wrote for his day and age, and he was shrewd enough to play to his largely uneducated and non-intellectual audiences. In his time, bombastic scripts and turgid scenes were the soup de jour for the masses who, unmarked by television and cinema, most probably didn't over-analyze the playwright's words, but relished the action and scenic effects as an escape from their dreary lives.

Tolstoy's day and age reflected much more sophisticated dramatists and audiences. I don't know if he wrote any epic plays. But if he did, his dramatic efforts would be subject to the same criticism by today's even more sophisticated analysts.

I have a complete set of Shakespeare's works and I prowl through them all when I can. There isn't a time where I fail to find some new nugget that entertains, moves or enlightens me. So much of his writing can be applied to today's political and moral culture.

I can agree with some of Tolstoy's points, but his main fault was in not recognizing the same human weaknesses in Shakespeare's works that he himself possessed.

Leni