by Harold Bloom ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2003
Shakespeare criticism that’s big, alive, towering, deep, passionate—in an age that so industriously miniaturizes and demeans...
Bloom says that in Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (1998), other matters kept him from saying “most of what [he] thought and felt” about Hamlet. A lucky thing, since now the great-hearted critic offers this little gem—deftly snatching Hamlet away from its legions of minor readers and reclaiming it for its major ones.
On the stateliest of notes, Bloom announces that Hamlet is so “unlimited” as to be “of no genre,” its greatness such that “it competes only with the world’s scriptures.” Such extraordinary significance can’t rise from a work that’s “about” the things that its commonly tendentious or politicized readers think—“mourning for the dead father,” say, or “outrage at [the] mother’s sexuality”—and Bloom discards the very notion that “the double shock of his father’s sudden death and his mother’s remarriage has brought about a radial change in” Hamlet. The infinitely greater and more interesting truth is that “Something in Hamlet dies before the play opens” and that the play’s real subject “is Hamlet’s consciousness of his own consciousness, unlimited yet at war with itself.” Only from so enormous a subject, the meaning of self-consciousness itself, and only through so prodigious a character as Hamlet (“he is cleverer than we are, and more dangerous”), does the play achieve its height, depth, and significance. Bloom asks questions that he may not, in so many words, answer—why does Hamlet come back to Elsinore after England? why does Shakespeare “so cheerfully” risk the very “dramatic continuity” of the play? why does he provide for the towering Hamlet so meager, paltry, and “mere” an opponent as Claudius? In every case: because the play, “a cosmological drama,” is so big that it’s bursting its own seams; because it serves simply as an excuse for the demonstration of its own enormity; because Hamlet is a character wrestling with “his desire to come to an end of playacting.”
Shakespeare criticism that’s big, alive, towering, deep, passionate—in an age that so industriously miniaturizes and demeans its literature.Pub Date: March 10, 2003
ISBN: 1-57322-233-X
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
Share your opinion of this book
More by Harold Bloom
BOOK REVIEW
by Harold Bloom
BOOK REVIEW
by Harold Bloom
BOOK REVIEW
by Harold Bloom ; edited by David Mikics
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
Share your opinion of this book
More by E.T.A. Hoffmann
BOOK REVIEW
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson
BOOK REVIEW
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis
by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
Share your opinion of this book
More by Ludwig Bemelmans
BOOK REVIEW
developed by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
BOOK REVIEW
by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.