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| Author | Harold Bloom |
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| Language | English |
| Subject | Shakespeare's plays |
Publication date | 1998 |
Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human is a survey of the works of Shakespeare published in 1998 by literary critic Harold Bloom.
| | |
| Author | Harold Bloom |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Shakespeare's plays |
Publication date | 1998 |
Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human is a survey of the works of Shakespeare published in 1998 by literary critic Harold Bloom.
Bloom provides an analysis of each of Shakespeare's 38 plays, 24 of which he believes "really are of the highest quality". [1] Written as a companion to the general reader and theater-goer, Bloom declares that bardolatry "ought to be even more a secular religion than it already is". [2] He also contends in the work that Shakespeare "invented" humanity, in that he prescribed the now-common practice of "overhearing" ourselves, which drives our changes. The two paragons of his theory are Sir John Falstaff of Henry IV and Hamlet, whom Bloom sees as representing self-satisfaction and self-loathing, respectively. These two characters, along with Iago and Cleopatra, Bloom believes (citing A. C. Bradley) are "the four Shakespearean characters most inexhaustible to meditation". [1]
Throughout Shakespeare, characters from disparate plays are imagined alongside and interacting with each other. As in The Western Canon , Bloom criticizes what he calls the "school of resentment" for its failure to live up to the challenge of Shakespeare's universality and for balkanizing the study of literature through multicultural and historicist departments. Asserting Shakespeare's singular popularity throughout the world, Bloom proclaims him the only truly multicultural author. Repudiating the "social energies" to which historicists ascribed Shakespeare's authorship, Bloom pronounces his modern academic foes to be but "caricatures of Shakespearean energies". [3]
Anthony Holden says that the book became "something of a publishing phenomenon" - a 750-page survey of Shakespeare which gained bestseller status and drew widespread attention to its author. "If his analyses are boldly colloquial," says Holden, "at times so sounding almost as if they were dictated, his insights are unfailingly original and uncompromising." [4]
The Boston Review's critic, Robert Atwan, says that while Bloom makes a bold claim, there is disappointingly little discussion of it. Most of the book is devoted to critical analyses of the plays and not explanation of the book's subtitle; though these analyses are "richly packed with brilliant observations", they "do not add up to the kind of systematic support Bloom's central claim deserves and demands", and not enough attention is given to the ramifications of that claim. [5] Nicholas Lezard also questions whether Bloom supports his claim and wonders at the author's worship of Shakespeare's characters, but says the book would be very useful to undergraduates, because though "[i]t is, in a way, deranged, a long way from close reading ... it is also the product of an intelligent and sensitive man's complete immersion in his subject". [6]
Publishers Weekly calls the book Bloom's "crowning achievement" in some ways and says that "[t]he ratio of screed to reading is blessedly low" compared to The Western Canon, recommending it especially to "performers and everyone who studies Shakespeare outside the academy". [7] James Shapiro in the The New York Times writes that the book is "unfortunately marred by a compulsion to denigrate" and finds Bloom's view of history to be "highly selective", but praises the author's insights into some of Shakeseare's works. "Had Bloom ... stuck to the plays and characters that he deeply understands," says Shapiro, "this book would have been a third as long and far more compelling." [8]
Geoffrey O'Brien does not find Bloom's criticisms of the "school of resentment" to be overdone, for the most part, and points to a long scholarly tradition supporting Bloom's emphasis on the primary importance of Shakespeare's characters, though he does criticize Bloom's "obsession" with Falstaff and lack of focus on aspects of Shakespeare beyond the major characters. In O'Brien's opinion, "the great strength of Bloom’s work is to insist at every point that the reader return to the text rather than get lost in generalizations or factoids". He says that Bloom "most stimulates when he most annoys", and that "[t]he power of Bloom’s criticism at its best is to refresh that sense of witnessing a world’s birth that is the uncanniest effect of reading Shakespeare or seeing him performed". O'Brien places the book as, in a way, the culmination of Bloom's series of "crossover" titles, "the indispensable critic on the indispensable writer". [9]
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, often shortened to Hamlet, is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts Prince Hamlet and his attempts to exact revenge against his uncle, Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet's father in order to seize his throne and marry Hamlet's mother. Hamlet is considered among the "most powerful and influential tragedies in the English language", with a story capable of "seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others". It is widely considered one of the greatest plays of all time. Three different early versions of the play are extant: the First Quarto ; the Second Quarto ; and the First Folio. Each version includes lines and passages missing from the others.
William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
Delia Salter Bacon was an American writer of plays and short stories and Shakespeare scholar. She is best known for her work on the authorship of Shakespeare's plays, which she attributed to social reformers including Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh and others.
The Merry Wives of Windsor or Sir John Falstaff and the Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy by William Shakespeare first published in 1602, though believed to have been written in or before 1597. The Windsor of the play's title is a reference to the town of Windsor, also the location of Windsor Castle in Berkshire, England. Though nominally set in the reign of Henry IV or early in the reign of Henry V, the play makes no pretence to exist outside contemporary Elizabethan-era English middle-class life. It features the character Sir John Falstaff, the fat knight who had previously been featured in Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2. It has been adapted for the opera at least ten times. The play is one of Shakespeare's lesser-regarded works among literary critics. Tradition has it that The Merry Wives of Windsor was written at the request of Queen Elizabeth I. After watching Henry IV Part I, she asked Shakespeare to write a play depicting Falstaff in love.
Robert Armin was an English actor, and member of the Lord Chamberlain's Men. He became the leading comedy actor with the troupe associated with William Shakespeare following the departure of Will Kempe around 1600. Also a popular comic author, he wrote a comedy, The History of the Two Maids of More-clacke, as well as Foole upon Foole, A Nest of Ninnies (1608) and The Italian Taylor and his Boy.
Pericles, Prince of Tyre is a Jacobean play written at least in part by William Shakespeare and included in modern editions of his collected works despite questions over its authorship, as it was not included in the First Folio. It was published in 1609 as a quarto, was not included in Shakespeare's collections of works until the third folio, and the main inspiration for the play was Gower's Confessio Amantis. Various arguments support the theory that Shakespeare was the sole author of the play, notably in DelVecchio and Hammond's Cambridge edition of the play, but modern editors generally agree that Shakespeare was responsible for almost exactly half the play — 827 lines — the main portion after scene 9 that follows the story of Pericles and Marina. Modern textual studies suggest that the first two acts, 835 lines detailing the many voyages of Pericles, were written by a collaborator, who may well have been the victualler, panderer, dramatist and pamphleteer George Wilkins. Wilkins published The Painful Adventures of Pericles Prince of Tyre which is the prose version of the story, and drew from Lawrence Twines' The Pattern of Painful Adventures. Pericles was one of the seventeen plays that were in print during Shakespeare's life, and was reprinted 5 times between 1609 and 1635.
The Ur-Hamlet is a play by an unknown author, thought to be either Thomas Kyd or William Shakespeare. No copy of the play, dated by scholars to the second half of 1587, survives today. The play was staged in London, more specifically at The Theatre in Shoreditch as recalled by Elizabethan author Thomas Lodge. It includes a character named Hamlet; the only other known character from the play is a ghost who, according to Thomas Lodge in his 1596 publication Wits Misery and the Worlds Madnesse, cries, "Hamlet, revenge!"
Henry IV, Part 2 is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written between 1596 and 1599. It is the third part of a tetralogy, preceded by Richard II and Henry IV, Part 1 and succeeded by Henry V.
Judge Holden is a purported historical person who partnered with John Joel Glanton as a professional scalp-hunter in Mexico and the American Southwest during the mid-19th century. To date, the only source for Holden's existence is Samuel Chamberlain's My Confession: Recollections of a Rogue, an autobiographical account of Chamberlain's life as a soldier during the Mexican–American War. Chamberlain described Holden as the most ruthless of the roving band of mercenaries led by Glanton, with whom Chamberlain had traveled briefly after the war: '[he] had a fleshy frame, [and] a dull tallow colored face destitute of hair and all expression;' 'a man of gigantic size'; 'by far the best educated man in northern Mexico'; 'in short another Admirable Crichton, and with all an arrant coward'.
Andrew Cecil Bradley, was an English literary scholar, best remembered for his work on Shakespeare.
Malvolio is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's comedy Twelfth Night, or What You Will. His name means "ill will" in Italian, referencing his disagreeable nature. He is the vain, pompous, authoritarian steward of Olivia's household.
In Shakespearean scholarship, the Henriad refers to a group of William Shakespeare's history plays depicting the rise of the English kings. It is sometimes used to refer to a group of four plays, but some sources and scholars use the term to refer to eight plays. In the 19th century, Algernon Charles Swinburne used the term to refer to three plays, but that use is not current.
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was an English poet and playwright. He wrote approximately 39 plays and 154 sonnets, as well as a variety of other poems.
Shakespeare's influence extends from theater and literatures to present-day movies, Western philosophy, and the English language itself. William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the history of the English language, and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He transformed European theatre by expanding expectations about what could be accomplished through innovation in characterization, plot, language and genre. Shakespeare's writings have also impacted many notable novelists and poets over the years, including Herman Melville, Charles Dickens, and Maya Angelou, and continue to influence new authors even today. Shakespeare is the most quoted writer in the history of the English-speaking world after the various writers of the Bible; many of his quotations and neologisms have passed into everyday usage in English and other languages. According to Guinness Book of World Records Shakespeare remains the world’s best-selling playwright, with sales of his plays and poetry believed to have achieved in excess of four billion copies in the over 400 years since his death. He is also the third most translated author in history.
Dorothy "Doll" Tearsheet is a fictional character who appears in Shakespeare's play Henry IV, Part 2. She is a prostitute who frequents the Boar's Head Inn in Eastcheap. Doll is close friends with Mistress Quickly, the proprietress of the tavern, who procures her services for Falstaff.
Characters of Shakespear's Plays is an 1817 book of criticism of Shakespeare's plays, written by early nineteenth century English essayist and literary critic William Hazlitt. Composed in reaction to the neoclassical approach to Shakespeare's plays typified by Samuel Johnson, it was among the first English-language studies of Shakespeare's plays to follow the manner of German critic August Wilhelm Schlegel, and, with the work of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, paved the way for the increased appreciation of Shakespeare's genius that was characteristic of later nineteenth-century criticism. It was also the first book to cover all of Shakespeare's plays, intended as a guide for the general reader.
Harold Bloom was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world." After publishing his first book in 1959, Bloom wrote more than 50 books, including over 40 books of literary criticism, several books discussing religion, and one novel. He edited hundreds of anthologies concerning numerous literary and philosophical figures for the Chelsea House publishing firm. Bloom's books have been translated into more than 40 languages. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1995.
Kill Shakespeare is a twelve-issue comic book limited series released by IDW Publishing. It was produced by Anthony Del Col and Conor McCreery, who also served as co-writers, with Andy Belanger as artist, Ian Herring as colourist, and Kagan McLeod as cover artist. The first issue was published on April 14, 2010.
The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages is a 1994 book about Western literature by the American literary critic Harold Bloom, in which the author defends the concept of the Western canon by discussing 26 writers whom he sees as central to the canon.
Bardolph is a fictional character who appears in four plays by William Shakespeare. He is a thief who forms part of the entourage of Sir John Falstaff. His grossly inflamed nose and constantly flushed, carbuncle-covered face is a repeated subject for Falstaff's and Prince Hal's comic insults and word-play. Though his role in each play is minor, he often adds comic relief, and helps illustrate the personality change in Henry from Prince to King.
