Harold Bloom

"Harold Bloom explores our Western literary tradition by concentrating on the works of twenty-six authors central to the Canon. He argues against ideology in literary criticism; he laments the loss of intellectual and aesthetic standards; he deplores multiculturalism, Marxism, feminism, neoconservatism, Afrocentrism, and the New Historicism." "Insisting instead upon "the autonomy of the aesthetic," Bloom places Shakespeare at the center of the Western...

Bloom leads readers through the labyrinthine paths which link the writers and critics who have informed and inspired him for so many years. For more than half a century, Bloom has shared his profound knowledge of the written word with students and readers. In this, his most comprehensive and accessible study of influence, Bloom leads us through the labyrinthine paths which link the writers and critics who have informed and inspired him for so many...

Shakespeare invented characters in a new kind of way. He not only gave them personality and depth, he gave them life. Not a life that went simply from point to point, but one that developed rather than unfolded. In so doing, Shakespeare created characters with whom everyone can identify, whether the characters were kings and queens or fools and merchants. Renowned Shakespearian scholar Professor Harold Bloom presents Shakespeare's seven major tragedies...

From the ambitious and mad titular character to his devilish wife Lady Macbeth to the moral and noble Banquo to the mysterious Three Witches, Macbeth is one of William Shakespeare's more brilliantly populated plays and remains among the most widely read, performed in innovative productions set in a vast array of times and locations, from Nazi Germany to Revolutionary Cuba. Macbeth is a distinguished warrior hero, who over the course of the play, transforms...

"Harold Bloom is our greatest living student of literature, "a colossus among critics" (The New York Times) and a "master entertainer" (Newsweek). Over the course of a remarkable career spanning more than half a century, in such best-selling books as The Western Canon and Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, he transformed the way we look at the masterworks of western literature. Now, in the first collection devoted to his illuminating writings...

"From Harold Bloom, one of the greatest Shakespeare scholars of our time as well as a beloved professor who has taught the Bard for over half a century, an intimate, wise, deeply compelling portrait of Falstaff--Shakespeare's greatest enduring and complex comedic character. Falstaff is both a comic and tragic central protagonist in Shakespeare's three Henry plays: Henry IV, Parts One and Two, and Henry V. He is companion to Prince Hal (the future...

"Harold Bloom, regarded by some as the greatest Shakespeare scholar of our time, presents an intimate, wise, deeply compelling portrait of King Lear--the third in his series of five short books about the great playwright's most significant personalities, hailed as Bloom's "last love letter to the shaping spirit of his imagination" on the front page of The New York Times Book Review. King Lear is perhaps the most poignant character in literature. The...

From one of the greatest Shakespeare scholars of our time, Harold Bloom presents Othello's Iago, perhaps the Bard's most compelling villain--the fourth in a series of five short books about the great playwright's most significant personalities. In all of literature, few antagonists have displayed the ruthless cunning and unscrupulous deceit of Iago, the antagonist to Othello. Often described as Machiavellian, Iago is a fascinating psychological specimen:...

Según Harold Bloom, el príncipe Hamlet y el rey Lear son los personajes de Shakespeare que nos plantean el mayor reto: "La tragedia de Hamlet, príncipe de Dinamarca y La tragedia del rey Lear rivalizan entre sí como los dos mayores dramas concebidos hasta ahora por la humanidad. Hamlet y Lear no tienen casi nada en común. El príncipe de Dinamarca lleva a sus límites intelecto y conciencia. El rey Lear de Britania no tiene autoconciencia ni...