The Spooky Art
“He takes the train to the nearest station. Let’s say it’s wintertime. He rents two horses and a sled, and drives out through the snow to Yasnya Polyana. Tolstoy’s pretty old by now, big, strong, severe, of course, and sits him right down and they talk. They drink tea and they talk. Tolstoy says: “Chekhov, you are a very good writer. You are excellent. Some of your short stories are so good I would have been pleased to have written them myself. But, Chekhov, I must tell you: You are a terrible p...laywright! You are awful! You are even worse than Shakespeare!”
Afterward, Chekhov drives back to the railroad station through the snow. In his journal he will write: “I whipped the horses. To the moon I shouted, ‘I am even worse than Shakespeare!’ ”
It’s a fine story, but if it’s true, why did Tolstoy dislike Shakespeare so? I expect the answer is that Tolstoy was always searching for subtle but precise moral judgment. That required a detailed sense of any sequence of events which had produced a dramatic or tragic event.MoreLess
Afterward, Chekhov drives back to the railroad station through the snow. In his journal he will write: “I whipped the horses. To the moon I shouted, ‘I am even worse than Shakespeare!’ ”
It’s a fine story, but if it’s true, why did Tolstoy dislike Shakespeare so? I expect the answer is that Tolstoy was always searching for subtle but precise moral judgment. That required a detailed sense of any sequence of events which had produced a dramatic or tragic event.MoreLess
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