"The sooner people rid themselves of the falsehood of the worship of Shakespeare, the better," wrote Leo Tolstoy in 1909 in his essay Shakespeare and Drama. "People who are trapped in this lie should understand that drama that is not based on religious elements is not a good work, as they currently believe, this contemptible and insignificant work of Shakespeare."

Tolstoy was not the only great thinker who disdainfully rejected Shakespeare. Bernard Shaw charged him with “cheap philosophy, hollow expressiveness, moral elasticity, popular vulgarity, and prejudice.” Voltaire described him as “a savage with enough imagination” and expressed remorse for having “first introduced Shakespeare to the French, identifying some pearls in the vast dungheap of his work.”