Rating: 
Summary: Invaluable companion to Shakespeare
Review: Don't worry that this book is a gagillion pages long - it isn't meant to be read cover to cover. Each of Shakespeare's plays receives it's own chapter of commentary.What is important is to read the introduction. Bloom bemoans the decay of the intellectual tradition. He celebrates Shakespeare (rightly so) for his own sake and not as merely interesting historically. To Bloom, Shakespeare is the greatest writer of all time. His shocking central theory is: Shakespeare INVENTED personality. Not simply how we look at personality - he created it as a concept.
Rating:
Summary: Bardolatry
Review: Professor Bloom's Shakespeare is an exhilarating look at all three dozen or so of the master's plays. Bloom's writing will be a bit impenetrable for some but it is never pretentious or unnecessarily difficult. He repeats his main ideas enough so that if you missed them the first time around (as is likely given the dense nature of his prose) you will get a chance to catch up. Many reviewers seem to think Bloom's ego gets in the way of perceptive literary criticism. Bloom certainly has a large ego but it can be forgiven because it does not hinder his penetrating insights. One example on page 715: "...because of Hamlet we have learned to doubt articulateness in the realm of affection. If someone can say too readily or too eloquently how much they love us, we incline not to believe them..." This sounds like something straight out of left field but it is intriguing nonetheless. I look at it this way: Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time is a seven volume novel told in first-person by a narrator who closely resembles Proust himself and is a thinly veiled fictionalization of his own life. Egotistical? Yes. But this doesn't prevent it from being the most perceptive novel ever written about human nature, and it contains the most brilliant observations on the world outside of the narrator's own consciousness. So it is with Bloom. At first I was a bit disappointed to see so many negative reviewers blatantly misreading Bloom's work and not being honest with themselves (perhaps reading Bloom makes them feel inferior-I initially resent people who are smarter than me and Bloom has read tens of thousands more books than I ever will) but I remembered a quote by Oscar Wilde: "Diversity of opinion shows that the work is new, complex, and vital."
Rating: 
Summary: Two Shakespeares not necessarily alike in anything
Review: Imagine if you will two Shakespeares and you have a dinner date with each. One is a pontificating blowhard, in love with his own admittedly formidable fortress-like intellect, convinced that the female ear was made for listening and the female mouth for...well...certainly not expressing her own viewpoint. The other Shakespeare is a delightful companion, full of merry wit, with an intelligence that is at once flexible, sexual, wide-ranging and sinuous. For him the female ear is to be enticed with good humor, good verse, good talk and the female mouth for...well...among many things, engaging with him in stimulating conversation and repartee. The former is to be found in Harold Bloom's Shakespeare: the Invention of the Human. The latter awaits you in Jonathan Bate's The Genius of Shakespeare. A Shakespearean Lover
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable, Readable & Valuable Tool
Review: Like most people, my fascination with Shakespeare began in high school, upon first meeting Hamlet. The fact that I was also lucky enough to have - yes, there are at least two - a "Hamlet and Falstaff worshipping" English teacher no doubt added fuel to the fire; I am amused by this quality in Bloom that some find so frustrating. I have continued to read Shakespeare, and for the past several years have subscribed to the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. I found this book particularly appealing, as Bloom hopes "to offer a fairly comprehensive interpretation of Shakespeare's plays addressed to common readers and theater goers." Since buying it, I have read (or re-read) and seen 6 plays, and followed up with Bloom's essay after each performance. I have yet to be disappointed: his ideas are always interesting, and even when I'm disagreeing, I'm engaged in the dialogue, and perhaps have re-read a section of the play just to clarify my position. This is in fact Bloom's other mission: "We need to exert ourselves and read Shakespeare as strenuosly as we can..." This book will get you off to a good start.
Rating:
Summary: A great reader and teacher shares a lifetime of reading
Review: The least important thing a great teacher does is the important task of providing the student with good information. The most valuable is to provide the student with sufficient challenge to stimulate passionate thinking so the student develops a framework to use in not only comprehending the topic at hand, but also ready for use in further intellectual development. Even to the point of being able to rebuild the framework itself as life experience stimulates reconsideration. Bloom is a great teacher and it is hard for me to find the words to explain how grateful I am for this book. I should start off by saying what it is not. Even though it discusses each of the 39 plays it is not at all a compendium surveying the plays. This is a book with a specific thesis and discusses the plays in terms of that thesis. The idea, if I understand Bloom correctly, is that Shakespeare's understanding of the human creature; the nature of our lives as human creatures, combined with Shakespeare's preternatural artistic gifts has actually changed our understanding of what it is to be human. Like all truly great artists, what we think of them says nothing about the artist, but everything about us. Shakespeare is such a potent cultural influence that he informs the lives of those who have never heard of him, who have never read his plays, and even those who don't speak a syllable of English. Bloom has read so widely and so deeply that he has much to share with us. I am glad for his courage to speak against the fashions of our time and to tell the truth about our post-literate stage of thinking. However, feel free to disagree with him (and especially with me). Bloom also is keenly aware of what the great critics have written about Shakespeare and uses that to also explicate his thesis and inform us of the range of understanding and interpretation of this magnificent art. I won't quibble with those who say that Bloom isn't the greatest prose writer. However, I will say (with some admitted overstatement in the comparison) that many have pointed out the awkwardness of Beethoven's vocal writing. That is to say, the music is so great and so transcendent it is really up to the vocalist to adapt. And while Bloom certainly isn't a Beethoven, he is certainly valuable enough a writer (because he is such a glorious reader) that we should be willing to adapt ourselves to his style and get past the little things that bother us. We don't want to miss the important stuff because of the lint in the creases. Do I agree with everything Bloom says? Who could? I certainly haven't read enough nor could I pretend to understand enough to talk in terms of disagreement. There are things I would ask about if I were in a class with him. There would be ideas I would challenge with the expectation that he would have a reservoir to call on that could easily drown my questioning. And I would learn. Which is the point after all. This book will inspire you to more and deeper reading and will provide you foot and hand holds into these plays that you might not have had before (I didn't). There isn't an index because it really isn't needed here. These are really essays about each play in terms of Bloom's larger thesis. It isn't a reference book or a history book about the plays. I read some other books to get ready to read this book. Of course, there is so much here that no amount of preparation can really provide a complete background. So, I guess my advice is to jump in. The water is deep, but wonderful.
Rating:
Summary: A Masterful, Genial Interlocutor
Review: 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 we really crave is conversation, with a sharing, perceptive interlocutor, with whom we might swap enthusiasms, probe ambiguities, repeat the words, declaim, expound, enact, react. In the end, we remain for the most part solitary enthusiasts. Hence the great and enduring value of the formidable critics and commentators: Johnson, Hazlitt, Pollard, Bradley, Van Doren, Goddard, Mack, Rowse, and, now, Harold Bloom. Of all these, none has provided greater pleasure, or more illuminating argumentation, or profound, quirky observations than Bloom, whom I've come to think of as my wise old Uncle Harold. I go directly from the play to Bloom's Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, for literary companionship. Taking his leads from Johnson, for whom Shakespeare is the great writer of human nature, and Hegel, who saw Shakespeare's characters as "free artists of themselves," Bloom's central teaching is that Shakespeare not only shows us, but literally invents our template for, what it means to be human. He mines this theme throughout, pausing long at the central characters--Falstaff, Rosalind, and Hamlet--who epitomize the lesson. In touching on each of the works, sometimes only briefly but never simply dutifully, Bloom invariably opens up new vistas, adds context, begs controversy, settles old scores and manufactures new ones, leads the reader back to the works for fresh consideration in new dimensions--and all in an avuncular, colloquial voice that I for one find wholly delightful and attractive. The professional lit-crit crowd doesn't share this view--which "populizers" has it ever easily credited?--but for me, having Bloom on my desk is roughly akin to having the erstwhile "brightest grad fellow ever" of the most formidable English Department at my beck and call, always willing and ready to sit up late in the Common Room for endless conversations over coffee and cigarettes, until exhaustion sets in, the sun rises, or the tobacco runs out. For all these things and for much else, Bloom's hefty volume joins Schoenbaum's sumptuous, long out of print Documentary Life, Dobson and Wells' Oxford Companion to Shakespeare, and Spevak's similarly OOP Concordance (as well as--pick 'em--your favorite edition of Complete Works: I like the Riverside but am open to other suggestions) on my short desert island shelf, which would occupy me for a lifetime on some God-forsaken atoll. Indeed, I love this indispensable, inexhaustible book and puzzle over those who cannot.
Rating:
Summary: Not For Beginners
Review: People who are new to Shakespeare's work (or at least are just starting to develop their own understandings and opinions of Shakespeare's work) need to avoid this book like the plagues that closed playhouses during Will's day. While Bloom can provide intellectual fodder (and much humor for those who recognize an intense and overblown ego when they see it) for those who know the Bard's work and have their own opinions, those who are newer to Shakespeare's work may well fall into a trap of assuming that Bloom is the definitive expert he seems to think he is. For instance, many who read or see the incredible Henry IV, Part 1 may well recognize the mythical arc of finding the father, get that Hal must choose between two fathers, and understand the coming of age story that propels this drama and makes it one of Shakespeare's most completely satisfying works. For those who don't know the play, though, Bloom's analysis will leave you thinking that Henry IV, Part 1 is about Falstaff and his reaction to Prince Hal's sudden distance. You might also think that Hal's ultimate renunciation of Falstaff's place in his life happens in that play, since Bloom never clearly delineates Part 1 from Part 2 (a fatal flaw when analyzing these two very distinct works). For Bloom, every error Shakespeare makes is some transcendental clue to a deeper meaning. Hamlet's age is not just a revision that needed to be made, but a commentary on the maturation process of the young prince that concluded with his work in having Rosencrantz and Guildenstern executed. Yeah, right. That's not to say Bloom's book doesn't have some merits. Even if you don't agree with his takes on the plays, he can certainly set your mind reeling on various possibilities. Unlike Shaw (who scripted every facial tic), Shakespeare left us with no definitive staging directions so we often don't know what he intended. Almost all of his major roles can be played in a number of ways. Bloom forgets this, but his dogged persistence does force the reader to come up with his or her own possibilities, thus expanding their understanding and possible enjoyment of Shakespeare's work. He also illuminates some lesser followed scholarship, including the concept (now gaining much wider acceptance) that the ur-Hamlet was written by Shakespeare, not Kyd. While his take on Hamlet is overbearing and overblown, his recognition that the Hamlet we know is a heavily rewritten work from much earlier in Shakespeare's career actually helps explain some of the dualities within that play. Bloom also does a decent job focusing attention on some of Shakespeare's lesser known works. Those who need to know about Coriolanus or The Two Noble Kinsmen will get some insights here. (And trust me, Two Noble Kinsmen is overlooked in most of the other analytical works of this type.) As long as you know your Bard somewhat, and don't have a strong passion for Prince Hal/Henry, Claudius, Henry VI, Henry Bolingbroke (or don't have a strong dislike for Hamlet or Falstaff -- whom Bloom worships), this book might give you some insights. It will definitely make you think, and it's likely to either make you laugh, or get angry enough to chuck the whole thing out the window. But when was the last time a book got you that involved?
Rating:
Summary: Bloom's Powerful Return Home to His Native Subject
Review: Like Odysseus, Bloom has spent far too many years dabbling in subjects far afield from his real expertise -- following the siren call of the "J" writer and twentieth century religious studies. What a pleasure to see him return home to his native subject and first love -- Shakespeare. Some random impressions: 1. Bloom's real value is in leading the reader to return to the plays themselves. He writes with deep insight and a real love for his subject. 2. Whether you agree with him or not, who can doubt that Bloom is a powerful teacher. At once a worshipper and iconoclast, he challenges and enlightens at every turn. He is the best of Yale, available for the cost of a cheap trade paperback edition, and without the need to attend class with the rich and snooty in New Haven. 3. Bloom's return, like that of the hero of the Iliad, is not peaceful, but bloody. In his wonted fashion he turns many shopworn theories about the Bard on their collective ears and slaughters the suitor-scholars without remorse. See, for example, his powerful and most persuasive chapter on Hamlet, in which he posits that our extant version of this huge play is really Shakespeare's second version, written in response to WS's loss of his only son, Hamnet, and his father within a period of a few months. The earlier version, now lost, is gutted and dramatically reworked by Shakespeare to become a kind of life's work -- much like Goethe and his Faust.
Rating: 
Summary: At times brilliant, at others frustrating
Review: Harold Bloom is an intelligent man and I often found much worth to his discussions of Shakespeare's plays. But for for every outstanding chapter on one play, I found another one to be lacking. He has a fixation with Falstaff througout this book and considers him to be Shakespeare's ideal embodiment of the personality of the human being. I have major issues with his Falstaff infatuation and I find that he is always comparing characters to him, positively (in Hamlet and Rosalind's cases) but often negatively. He never sticks to his argument, but I agreed with the supposition before even reading the book. He also quotes the text of the plays to a great length, far too great. A quarter of this book is the complete works! I recommend a far better book that achieves the same discussion without pretending to be high criticism: Stanley Wells's Shakespeare: The Poet and his Plays. It is amazingly smart, brilliant, and gets you to understand the plays in new and exciting ways. It is much better than Bloom's attempt.
Rating:
Summary: A thoughtful examination of Shakespeare
Review: Harold Bloom's contention that Shakespeare is the originator of the idea of man understanding himself may be arguable (to paraphrase from the jacket, "Shakespeare...created human nature as we know it today.") but Bloom makes a valid and passionate argument for this contention in this delightful book. Each play is examined thoroughly, with the author taking the time to give examples of Shakespeare's abilities as a creator. The reader is constantly fascinated and challenged by Bloom's observations into Shakespeare's plays, and will be amazed at the details and understanding that Bloom brings to light. Bloom's particular focus is on the characters that transcend the norms of literature, those that seem to take on their own lives, like Hamlet and Falstaff. Bloom presents the characters as examples of Shakespeare's magnificent powers and considering Bloom's exceptional ability to justify his point of view; it is difficult to disagree with him. Not since Ian McKellen's "Acting Shakespeare" have I seen Shakespeare's plays so clearly. Did Shakespeare "invent" us? Maybe not, Bloom makes it clear that the world would be a very different place without him.
| 
