TOLSTOY AND SHAKESPEARE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 7, 8 July 1909, Page 2

TOLSTOY AND SHAKESPEARE.

The principal item on tho agenda at last night's meeting of the Philosophical Society was a paper by Mr. H. L James, entitled "Tolstoy and Others on Shakespeare." Mr. James said that a curious critical essay on Shakcspearo had been published by Leo Tolstoy. It had beon introduced by Mr. Bernard Shaw, but that gentleman and others who had taken up a similar line required no comment. It was different as regards Tolstoy. None could deny that he was, or had been, i great man ; but hie criticisms were not to be tho more esteemed on that account, tn the first plaoe, he was under the disadvantage of want of familiarity with the language, the idiom, and the national habits of thought. It was safe to aay that no foreign critio had penetrated to the doeper things of Shakespeare, and there was evidence, not only that Tolstoy had not understood ths work he criticised, but, ho might almost -add, that he had not greatly tared to understand it. No more striking example than the strictures on "King Lear," to which he intended to confine himpolf, could be given of tho truth that "the letter killeth." Tolstoy never went deeper than the letter, and missed tho Bnirit. He novel- .co much as realised that he was dealing with poetry. Ho treated tho author as an annalist-, and when he came across superb examples of artistry in languago, ho applied to them the standards by which we would judge a shorthand report. Many instances were adduced of misapprehension of specific passages ; but , lie contended that in the matter of Lear's madness, the depicting of which Tolstoy considered unnatural and impossible, he had completely misconceived the whole intention of tho author. Mr. .Tames followed the subject into minute detail, and thrilled the audience by the impressive manner in which he lead the illustrative passages. A brief discussion lollc-wea, in which Professor Richmond, Mr. C. W. Adams, and Mr T. Adatm and tho presidpnl took i pa-rt. each sppakinq; in terms of high appreciation of Mr Jamos's paper.

R. Turner, of Sydney, who is to be matched at Hastings against T. TracyT of Wellington, for a substantial purse, fttrivod in Wellington yesterday by the Ulimaroß. '