Leo Tolstoy was one of Shakespeare’s fiercest critics. He denied that the English writer was a genius and did his utmost to undermine his standing in literary circles. According to Tolstoy himself, he spent the best part of 50 years trying to understand Shakespeare. He kept going back to the playwright in every possible language and translation that he could, but the result was always the same: Shakespeare’s writing evoked feelings of “repulsion, weariness and bewilderment” in Tolstoy.
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