some of shakespeare's work was performed in continental europe even during his lifetime; ludwig tieck pointed out german versions of "hamlet" and other plays, of uncertain provenance, but certainly quite old. but it was not until after the middle of the next century that shakespeare appeared regularly on german stages. in germany lessing compared shakespeare to german folk literature. goethe organised a shakespeare jubilee in frankfurt in 1771, stating that the dramatist had shown that the aristotelian unities were "as oppressive as a prison" and were "burdensome fetters on our imagination". herder likewise proclaimed that reading shakespeare's work opens "leaves from the book of events, of providence, of the world, blowing in the sands of time". this claim that shakespeare's work breaks though all creative boundaries to reveal a chaotic, teeming, contradictory world became characteristic of romantic criticism, later being expressed by victor hugo in the preface to his play "cromwell", in which he lauded shakespeare as an artist of the grotesque, a genre in which the tragic, absurd, trivial and serious were inseparably intertwined.