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It is a long and fascinating itinerary, and one littered with thousands of sharp insights. Listen to Bloom on Romeo and Juliet: "The Nurse and Mercutio, both of them audience favorites, are nevertheless bad news, in different but complementary ways." On The Merchant of Venice: "To reduce him to contemporary theatrical terms, Shylock would be an Arthur Miller protagonist displaced into a Cole Porter musical, Willy Loman wandering about in Kiss Me Kate." On As You Like It: "Rosalind is unique in Shakespeare, perhaps indeed in Western drama, because it is so difficult to achieve a perspective upon her that she herself does not anticipate and share." Bloom even offers some belated vocational counseling to Falstaff, identifying him as an Elizabethan Mr. Chips: "Falstaff is more than skeptical, but he is too much of a teacher (his true vocation, more than highwayman) to follow skepticism out to its nihilistic borders, as Hamlet does."
In the end, it doesn't matter very much whether we agree with all or any of these ideas. What does matter is that Bloom's capacious book sends us hurrying back to some of the central texts of our civilization. "The ultimate use of Shakespeare," the author asserts, "is to let him teach you to think too well, to whatever truth you can sustain without perishing." Bloom himself has made excellent use of his hero's instruction, and now he teaches us all to do the same. --Daniel Hintzsche
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Harold Bloom, the doyen of American literary critics and author of The Western Canon, has spent a professional lifetime reading, writing about and teaching Shakespeare. In this magisterial interpretation, Bloom explains Shakespeares genius in a radical and provocative re-reading of the plays. How to understand Shakespeare, whose ability so far exceeds his predecessors and successors, whose genius has defied generations of critics explanations, whose work is of greater influence in the modern age even than the Bible? This book is a visionary summation of Harold Blooms reading of Shakespeare and in it he expounds a brilliant and far-reaching critical theory: that Shakespeare was, through his dramatic characters, the inventor of human personality as we have come to understand it. In short, Shakespeare invented our understanding of ourselves. He knows us better than we do: The plays remain the outward limit of human achievement: aesthetically, cognitively, in certain ways morally, even spiritually. They abide beyond the end of the minds reach; we cannot catch up to them. Shakespeare will go on explaining us in part because he invented us In a chronological survey of each of the plays, Bloom explores the supra-human personalities of Shakespeares great protagonists: Hamlet, Lear, Falstaff, Rosalind, Juliet. They represent the apogee of Shakespeares art, that art which is Britains most powerful and dominant cultural contribution to the world, here vividly recovered by an inspired and wise scholar at the height of his powers. Harold Bloom, the doyen of American literary critics and author of The Western Canon, has spent a professional lifetime reading, writing about and teaching Shakespeare. In this magisterial interpretation, Bloom explains Shakespeares genius in a radical and provocative re-reading of the plays. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780007292844
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Brand New. 772 pages. 9.17x6.06x3.90 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # __0007292848
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 5749311-n
Book Description Condition: New. 2008. 1St Edition. Paperback. Harold Bloom, the doyen of American literary critics and author of The Western Canon, has spent a professional lifetime reading, writing about and teaching Shakespeare. In this magisterial interpretation, Bloom explains Shakespeare's genius in a radical and provocative re-reading of the plays. Num Pages: 768 pages. BIC Classification: 2AB; DSGS. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 234 x 155 x 40. Weight in Grams: 986. . . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland. Seller Inventory # V9780007292844
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Book Description Condition: New. 2008. 1St Edition. Paperback. Harold Bloom, the doyen of American literary critics and author of The Western Canon, has spent a professional lifetime reading, writing about and teaching Shakespeare. In this magisterial interpretation, Bloom explains Shakespeare's genius in a radical and provocative re-reading of the plays. Num Pages: 768 pages. BIC Classification: 2AB; DSGS. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 234 x 155 x 40. Weight in Grams: 986. . . . . . Seller Inventory # V9780007292844