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A Right Literary "Phrenzy" - the Most Horrible Insults Ever

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Orpheus, the greatest poet of classical antiquity. Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot   (1796–1875)  Wikimedia Commons Would you like to know what Tolstoy said about Shakespeare? It was this:  "The undisputed fame enjoyed by Shakespeare as a writer. .. is, like every other lie, a great evil. "  A bit strong don't you think?  And how about this tirade by George Bernard Shaw about Shakespeare:  "With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise entirely as I despise Shakespeare when I measure my mind against his. The intensity of my impatience with him occasionally reaches such a pitch that it would positively be a relief to me to dig him up and throw stones at him, knowing as I do how incapable he and his worshippers are of understanding any less obvious form of dignity." And the sublime Keats really got it in the neck. Unbelievable! Lord Byron said (and I hate him for it, the pompous, puffe