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Throughout the ages, some of the most celebrated writers have been subject to harsh criticism, often from other equally esteemed authors. Iconic literary works, ranging from Shakespeare’s timeless plays to Hemingway’s celebrated novels, have all faced some of the harshest critiques ever delivered by their fellow literary giants.
10. George Bernard Shaw's Critique of Shakespeare
George Bernard Shaw, the distinguished writer who earned both an Academy Award and a Nobel Prize for Literature, was renowned for his numerous successful plays, with his most famous being Pygmalion. His fame as a playwright, however, led him to believe he could deliver some rather harsh remarks about none other than Shakespeare himself.
"Aside from Homer, there is no notable writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I hold in such complete disdain as I do Shakespeare. My frustration with him sometimes becomes so overwhelming that I almost feel it would be a relief to exhume him and hurl stones at his grave."
Shaw wasn’t the only famous writer to openly express his disdain for the Bard: Voltaire famously labeled Shakespeare a “drunken savage,” claiming his works were only popular among audiences in “London and Canada.” To add insult to injury, Voltaire also referred to his plays as a “vast dunghill.”
9. Mark Twain's Thoughts on Jane Austen
For many, Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, is the epitome of an American author. But Twain apparently had strong opinions about one of England’s most revered novelists. In an essay criticizing Jane Austen's works, Twain remarked:
"She manages to make me loathe every character she creates, without exception. Is that her goal? It seems unlikely. Or is it her intention to make the reader despise her characters halfway through the book and eventually grow fond of them by the end? That might be the case. That would be a remarkable achievement. Perhaps one day I’ll read the latter parts of her books to find out."
"Every time I revisit Pride and Prejudice, I feel the urge to exhume her and strike her over the head with her own shinbone."
Twain’s knack for sharp criticism wasn’t confined to Austen—he also wrote a scathing essay titled “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses,” where he claimed that Cooper’s The Deerslayer committed “114 violations of literary art out of a possible 115 . . . its humor is pitiable; its pathos is laughable; its dialogues are—oh, indescribable; its romantic scenes repulsive; its use of English a crime against the language.” Some speculate Twain made these remarks toward other renowned authors just for amusement.
8. Charlotte Brontë’s Critique of Jane Austen
Jane Austen may be celebrated for her composed characters, yet she certainly knew how to provoke strong reactions. Charlotte Bronte, a near-contemporary who favored passion over restrained practicality, expressed her discontent after reading Pride and Prejudice in a cursory manner, saying:
“She does not provoke her reader with anything intense, nor stir him with anything profound. The emotions are foreign to her. While she may observe sharply, speak fittingly, and move fluidly, it is the study of subtlety that appeals to her. However, what races fast and fiercely, though hidden—what the bloodstream carries, what is the secret core of life and the sensitive target of death—this Miss Austen disregards.”
In a letter to a friend who cautioned her not to become overly dramatic, Bronte confessed she couldn’t have borne the idea of being confined to the polished gardens and high society so frequently depicted in Austen’s novels.
Critics and authors often form their views of Austen based on her treatment of emotion (or the lack thereof). Ian Watt argued that Austen’s works resonate only with those who prioritize reason over feeling. In contrast, Virginia Woolf held Austen’s work in high regard, asserting that she was 'the mistress of a deeper emotion than is immediately apparent.'
7. Oscar Wilde On Alexander Pope
Both of these authors are among the most distinguished figures in British literature, with a rare honor of being memorialized in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey. However, it seems that Wilde wasn't particularly fond of his celebrated predecessor. Known for his witty remarks and sharp barbs, Wilde once penned a letter to a friend in which he remarked:
“There are numerous ways to dislike poetry; one is simply to dislike it, and the other is to read Alexander Pope.”
Since Pope had passed away by this point, he never had the opportunity to retort to Wilde’s insult. However, it's safe to assume his response would have been just as biting. After all, when the writer Lewis Theobald criticized Pope’s Shakespeare adaptations, Pope retaliated by making him the central figure in an epic, four-volume poem titled The Dunciad, where Theobald was depicted as the son and favorite of the goddess “Dulness.” Later, after a falling out with playwright Colley Cibber, Pope revised the poem to cast Cibber as the title character.
Despite his apparent disregard, critics have pointed out several references to Pope’s work in Wilde’s only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, where a particular exchange in the dialogue strongly echoes a line from Pope’s The Rape of the Lock.
6. Virginia Woolf's View on James Joyce
In a letter to T.S. Eliot from 1922, Woolf sought the poet's honest thoughts on Joyce’s recently published Ulysses. That same year, she also wrote to her sister, urging her to meet Joyce: 'I especially want to know what he’s like.'
Despite Woolf’s intrigue with Joyce, this did not equate to admiration for his literary abilities. After reading a few hundred pages of Ulysses, she revealed in her diary:
“It seems like an unrefined, uncouth book: the work of a self-taught working-class man, and we all know how troublesome they can be—egotistical, persistent, unpolished, jarring, and ultimately repulsive.”
Virginia Woolf was not the only writer who struggled with getting through Ulysses. D.H. Lawrence, often linked with Joyce as a luminary of modern literature, admitted to being “one of the people who can’t read Ulysses,” although he acknowledged that Joyce might well “look as much askance on me as I on him.”
5. T.S. Eliot's Opinion on Aldous Huxley
Some scholars believe that T.S. Eliot and Aldous Huxley held some mutual admiration, at least in part. Both were members of Lady Ottoline Morrell's Bloomsbury Circle, a bohemian group of intellectuals from the era, and both studied each other’s works closely. Huxley’s renowned novel, Brave New World, and Eliot’s The Hollow Men explore many similar themes. Nevertheless, Eliot did not shy away from criticizing Huxley, once commenting:
“Huxley, who is perhaps one of those writers who must produce thirty mediocre novels before crafting a great one, possesses a certain inherent—but underdeveloped—ability for seriousness. Unfortunately, this talent is hindered by a knack for absorbing everything that is not essential.”
H.G. Wells, another writer known for his works set in futuristic, often dystopian worlds, was deeply disheartened by Huxley’s bleak portrayal of the future, claiming that someone of Huxley’s stature had “no right to betray the future as he did in that book.”
4. William Faulkner’s Opinion on Ernest Hemingway
Some writers, like Huxley and Wells, disagree over ideological matters. Faulkner’s issue with Hemingway, however, was much more direct— he simply didn’t care for his style. Regarding Hemingway’s famously short, direct sentences, Faulkner remarked:
“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”
Faulkner’s writing style was undoubtedly more intricate than Hemingway’s—it's not uncommon to come across sentences that stretch across pages in his books. These lengthy sentences were no accident; they were integral to his approach to writing. In an interview, Faulkner explained his goal was “to put the whole history of the human heart on the head of a pin . . . the long sentence is an attempt to capture [a character’s] past and potentially their future in the single moment in which they act.”
And forget about reaching for a dictionary—some of Faulkner’s invented portmanteau words, such as “allknowledgeable,” “droopeared,” and “fecundmellow,” wouldn’t even appear in the most comprehensive reference books.
3. Martin Amis’ Thoughts on Miguel de Cervantes
We all have those—family members or friends whose visits leave us convinced they’ve lost touch with reality. Martin Amis, an English novelist best known for cult classics like Money and London Fields, seems to view Miguel de Cervantes’s iconic 17th-century novel as embodying that eccentric, ever-inappropriate relative:
“Reading Don Quixote can be likened to an endless visit from your most frustrating elderly relative, with all his antics, bad habits, never-ending stories, and awful companions.”
Although Don Quixote received a somewhat divided reception upon its release, it is now widely regarded as the first true modern novel. Harold Bloom, a respected literary critic and Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale, has nothing but glowing praise for Cervantes’ monumental work:
“Cervantes and Shakespeare, who passed away nearly simultaneously, are the quintessential western authors, at least since Dante, and no writer since has come close to matching them, not Tolstoy or Goethe, Dickens, Proust, or Joyce.”
In the same article, Bloom raises an intriguing point: “Cervantes inhabits his great book so deeply that we must recognize it as having three distinct personalities: the knight, Sancho, and Cervantes.” If that’s accurate, perhaps Cervantes himself embodies that “impossible senior relative” we all know so well.
2. W.H. Auden and T.S. Eliot on Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was one of the most significant writers of the 19th century. Often hailed as the originator of the murder mystery genre, he certainly paved the way for later masters like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. Poe also earned international recognition (mostly posthumously) for his poetry, which frequently explores themes of death and loss.
However, not everyone was fond of Poe’s dark, morbid tales and his melodramatic, melancholic style. The poet W.H. Auden was less than flattering, describing Poe as:
“An unmanly sort of man whose love-life seems to have been largely confined to crying in laps and playing mouse.”
T.S. Eliot, somewhat more tactfully, attributed to Poe: “the intellect of a highly gifted person before puberty.”
Poe’s life was nearly as tumultuous as the dark tales and poems he penned. After leaving school due to financial difficulties, discovering his beloved had become engaged to someone else, and finding his mother had passed away when he went to visit her, he embarked on a journey in search of fame.
At 27, he married 13-year-old Virginia Clemm, who tragically passed away from tuberculosis shortly after. Poe’s death itself was as mysterious as the grim stories he wrote—he was found dead in a public house after vanishing in Baltimore for five days. Today, Poe is either celebrated as a literary genius or condemned as a pedophile with an obsession for blackbirds.
1. Ernest Hemingway On William Faulkner
Naturally, as a man who once responded to an insult by punching Orson Welles, Hemingway wasn’t about to back down from a confrontation. In reply to Faulkner’s “dictionary” comment, Hemingway scoffed:
“Poor Faulkner. Does he really believe that grand emotions are conveyed through grand words?”
Hemingway was of the opinion that writing should be clear and direct enough that readers wouldn’t need to search through reference books to grasp a concept. In his view, the finest writers didn’t have to consult dictionaries.
Ironically, some of Hemingway’s works are filled with foreign words and phrases, which can pose a challenge for readers who only speak English. It seems that sending readers to a dictionary was only an issue for Hemingway when it involved an English dictionary.
If you’re keen to emulate Hemingway’s writing style, the Hemingway App can guide you by pointing out sentences in need of simplification and adverbs that should be removed. Alternatively, if you prefer Faulkner’s style, you might want to grab an unabridged Oxford English Dictionary and begin reading, while randomly combining words.
