Tolstoy's 1906 Shakespeare Critique Provokes Orwell's 1947 Response on Religious vs. Humanist Art

In 1906, Leo Tolstoy released an essay denouncing William Shakespeare as an 'insignificant, inartistic writer' whose literature encouraged immorality. This criticism emerged during Tolstoy's shift to Christian anarchism, where he championed the Russian peasantry and opposed the aristocracy. He attributed Shakespeare's popularity to an 'epidemic suggestion' propagated by 18th-century German scholars and critiqued 'King Lear' for its lack of artistic value. In response, George Orwell wrote 'Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool' in 1947, framing the debate as a confrontation between religious and humanist ideologies. Orwell highlighted psychological similarities between Tolstoy and King Lear while defending Shakespeare's 'exuberance' and humanism, emphasizing the conflict between religious and humanist evaluations in art.