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, Afro-centrism, and the New Historicism.

Harold Bloom is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University, Berg Professor of English at New York University, and a former Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard. He has written more than 20 books of literary criticism. From a lifetime of writing and teaching about literature, this great scholar exhorts readers to consider the pleasures and benefits of reading well. Beginning with a basic question, "Why read?" Bloom offers his thoughts...

[The author presents what he feels is the] one hundred most creative literary minds in history. [He defines genius as:] it is the trait of standing both of and above its age, the ancient principle that recognizes and hallows the God within us, and the gift of breathing life into what is best in every living person.... The author explores the numerous parallels between his chosen geniuses and the surprising ways they have influenced one another over...

"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...

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...

"In arguably his most personal and lasting book, America's most daringly original and controversial critic gives us brief, luminous readings of more than eighty texts by canonical authors-- texts he has had by heart since childhood"-- Provided by publisher.

Harold Bloom realiza un acercamiento literario, crítico y ante todo humanista a los personajes que considera más relevantes de Shakespeare. La segunda: Cleopatra. Cleopatra, una de las mujeres por sí misma más fascinantes de la historia, se convirtió también, gracias a Shakespeare, en uno de los personajes literarios más interesantes. La fusión de la historia y la literatura dieron lugar al mito. Cleopatra se nos presenta como un personaje...

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...

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: at once a shrewd expert of the human mind and yet, himself a deeply troubled man. One of Shakespeare's most provocative and culturally relevant plays, Othello is widely studied for its complex and enduring themes of race and racism, love,...

The poetry of Walt Whitman is the cornerstone of modern American verse. He was America's first truly great poet and his influence is still evident today. The first edition of Whitman's Leaves of Grass, published in 1855, was a revolutionary manifesto declaring America's independence from European cultural domination. His rhapsodic free verse broke radically with poetic, tradition: it was poetry about America, its democracy, its people, and its hopes....