Tolstoy, Count Leo (Lev) Nikolayevich
Tolstoy, Count Leo (Lev) Nikolayevich (1828–1910),Russian novelist, frequently compared to Shakespeare for his universality, invention of character, steadiness of vision, breadth of life represented, and devotion to truth. Yet Tolstoy is probably the most implacable dissenter to Shakespeare's reputation in modern times, complaining (in Shakespeare and the Drama, 1904) of his unnaturalness, implausibility, cheap theatricality, aristocratic sympathies, moral indifference, and hyperbolic language—preferring, for example, the source play King Leir to Shakespeare's. G. Wilson Knight's Shakespeare and Tolstoy (1934) considers the objections, while George Orwell's essay ‘Lear, Tolstoy, and the Fool’ (1947) argues for a degree of identification on Tolstoy's part. It is ironic that Tolstoy's own final flight with his daughter Alexandra (Sasha) and death in a stationmaster's cottage in Astopovo resemble nothing more than...
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