Outside university English departments, devotion to the Bard is a lonely avocation. We read these great works and tend to carry our own thoughts and reactions to them inside us. We commit passages to memory because we want to own these words, to be a part of the Great Chain of the English Language, a transgenerational community joined in a common appreciation of the finest, most universal written English yet wrought. But what...
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In The Western Canon, Harold Bloom stated that Shakespeare, along with Milton, was the center of Western thought. In Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, he contends that Shakespeare, alone, "went beyond all precedents (even Chaucer) and invented the human as we continue to know it." Bloom assigns Shakespeare the singular honor of being responsible for our personalities, not just in the Western world, but in all cultures...
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I appreciate all my fellow reviewer's criticisms about the book: yes it's true that Bloom was opinionated, non-politically correct, and a bit of a wacko at times. Still, he's one of the few 20th century critics who has the self confidence not to fall into lit. crit. jargon to express himself -- he manages to avoid the snobbiness that often accompanies Shakespeare studies. The word I would use to describe this work overall...
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Some readers need to lighten up! Pick from this bountiful and pleasurable book like you would pluck grapes from a bunch, and use it as a springboard to formulating your own responses to Shakespeare, whether in agreement or disagreement with Bloom the Bardolator.For all you readers who sniff about cant and fret that Professor Bloom ignores agendas dear to you -- I must say that Bloom's thorough zest for his subject completely...
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I've read the book of course, and I've read reviews of the book in various mags and such. I'm astounded by the amount of comments that sound like this: "You don't have to agree with him; what's important is that you go back to the texts", or, "Bloom too often derides political correctness" . . . What's wrong with deriding political correctness? It clearly needs to be derided, and thank God Harold Bloom is here to do...
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One of my most favorite blogs to write is this one, my Christmas message to our ThriftBooks community. Each year I give careful thought to what theme and message to impart, and this year inspiration struck at one (of several) performances of A Christmas Carol, when this classic brought to the surface for me how happiness is really shared.