Rating: 
Summary: Unfortunate worship
Review: Bloom seems to hold the "School of Resentment" to represent what is wrong with Shakespeare criticism, with literary criticism in particular. Ironically, this book is exactly the sort of thing that critics in the "School of Resentment" point to when *they* discuss what is wrong with Shakespeare criticism.And both sides are correct. While Bloom is correct in despising the postmodernists for their arrogant, narrow-minded nihilism, Bloom in his own book demonstrates the sort of arrogant, narrow-minded hero-worship that the postmodernists are overreacting against. This book is another unfortunate--and unfortunately popular--contribution to the gulf that separates literary criticism from reality.
Rating: 
Summary: Bloom's Odyssey
Review: Bloom has written a wonderful book! Good Points: Julius Caesar and the role of Brutus, Falstaff in Henry IV, Love's Labour's Lost, Hamlet. He refers to stage performances and unlike most lit types, actually refers to the sonnets. His thesis that Shakespeare invented the human, though not always believable, is provocative. The book has absorbing essays complemented by intelligent selections of the Bard's Text. Bad Points: Very slim essay on Coriolanus, refuses to admit Merchant might be a problem play (Says Merchant unplayable after WW II!! Jessica is called a "Jewish Princess" and never mentioned again!), Antony and Cleo is a great tragedy? While Romeo and Juliet is an "apprentice" Play? Cleo has 2 Acts with at least 13 scenes in them. Cleo should be the apprentice play and Romeo should be grouped with the great tragedies!! Bloom, What have you (...)???? Othello never slept with Desdemona?? Should have used the Bloody Sheets Test to prove her fidelity?? Bloom, I suspect, has been (...)while writing that one!! Bloom talks about the great Dr. Johnson but never quotes him. Instead, he discusses that great Shakespeare scholar-- Frederich Nietzsche!! (Beyond Good and Evil, Twilight of the Gods. He's famous for "God is Dead.") Are you Kidding Me? They engage in an ongoing discussion through the book. Still, I recommend this book for it's thought-provoking essays. Voltaire: I disagree with what you say, but I defend to the death your right to say it. That includes Harold Bloom.
Rating:
Summary: Bloom in Love
Review: An amusing book, offering gentle readers often alarming insight into the mind of an excruciatingly self-serving professional throwback prof/litcrit character. Bloom's familiariaty with Shakespeare seems to breed a complicated form of contempt? What he actually transmits is his own spiritual autobiography, lightly refracted? Views on late works, especially "Lear" and "The Tempest", seem stubbornly skewed? Readers may suspect Bloom of contending that Shakespeare, aging on up into his 40s, was no more aware of his own limitations than a pontificating Doctor of Literature? WHAT? Perish the thought! But every book must have its star? Bloom merits commendation for eschewing jargon, for risking his own opinions rather than hiding behind the robes of other large important critics, for longing for reasonable respect for writer intent. He also endeavors to have some fun, very sporting for this genre, though one may also wonder how guffawing out loud at poppycock might be greeted in his classroom? Bloom blurring self/Shakespeare so heavily is complicated by the fact no one, Bloom included, KNOWS very much about the very singular human Shakespeare definitely DID invent. Sad in one sense. Lucky in another. Bloom can speculate as he likes? So may others. Pass the salt.
Rating: 
Summary: an ultimate book? this comes very close.
Review: Shakespeare invents the human quite simply because Shakespeare was possessed of the broadest intelligence in history, and he used that intelligence to deal with the human personality, which is after all the essence of being human. Did he so invent. Mr.Bloom concludes, "It is merely true." Every author prior to Shakespeare including his precursor, Mr.Chaucer, and since--under Bloom's comprehensive analysis--failed to place in writing the depth of human personality accomplished in the plays. The total complexity, the vast scope, the very transcendence of the central meaning and purpose of life has yet to be stamped on the page by anyone with the comprehension of William Shakespeare. At first in Bloom's book this reviewer believed that Bloom meant that Shakespeare invented the human personality in literature, a thought much easier to understand. But, it becomes clear as one reads that Bloom intends also that this "invention" is a physical embodiment in our very lives for simply, the invention of "human" means a living mind which can fulfill itself completely only if it first possess the depth of understanding only displayed and elaborated in Shakespeare. Shakespeare took the human piece of clay, identified its intellectual universe, and placed it there to deal as only the mind of Shakespeare has ever been able. And for those who say well you overlooked this author and that author, Mr. Bloom presents the relevant excerpts from all the plays, and on reading, it is difficult to impossible to dispute. Basically, Mr. Bloom goes through play after play after play, and makes his case. As to the book itself, this reviewer initially skipped around, reading a chapter here and there annoyed with the much mentioned excesses, but at some point decided to read the book from first word to last. Reading the book straight through one gains a far expanded perspective. It is believed here that there is only one possible fair minded reaction to this book, which is that it is one of the most well written, well thought out, stunningly brilliant bits of scholarship yet written. In addition to all of his gifts, Professor Bloom has that ability of common sense, the knack of putting everything into absolutely clear perspective, sensing every concern. One reads here brilliant analysis after brilliant analysis, and just when we are thinking that both Bloom and Shakespeare must be exhausted, we find that both have saved the best for last. Bloom's reviews of Cymbeline, Winters Tale, Tempest, crescendo in their insight, and probably the last play, The Two Noble Kinsmen is at the very summit of Bloom's attempts through these final plays to surmise the consciousness of Shakespeare himself. It is unnecessary to be a bardoleter to appreciate Bloom. One can recognize the dour pessimism and sometimes bizarre subject matter of William Shakespeare. But one can still value the journey on which Bloom takes us here, the very ultimate of teachers, he shows us there is so very much to learn.
Rating: 
Summary: Recommended for Shakespeare lovers only. . . .
Review: because they're the only people who might have a high enough tolerance for all the verbiage herein. Being a "Bardolater" (Bloom's neat phrase) myself, I certainly enjoyed many of the essays here, but I'm not sure how much use this book will be to a general reader or especially a student. . . . Bloom does offer intriguing theories: one, for instance, is that the *Ur-Hamlet* presumed to be Thomas Kyd's was actually a very youthful Shakespearean work along the lines of *Titus Andronicus*. Bloom rightfully places *Hamlet* at the center of the canon, and suggests that the young Shakespeare tinkered with play for a decade or more before the tragedy as we know it finally took shape -- and he might have revised it again afterwards. This seems right to me. Indeed, Bloom is generally "right" about all of the plays . . . with a few, glaring, exceptions: I agree with a reviewer below that Edmund is certainly no "nihilist" (his behavior belies that). The author, in his essay on *Measure for Measure*, spends way too much time discussing a very minor character in the play named Barnardine (he gets more ink than the fascinating, repellent Angelo, for Pete's sake!). Bloom is also blind, I feel, to the "prodigal son" charms of Prince Hal in the *Henry IV* plays -- the author won't permit us to actually like both Falstaff AND the Prince. We must choose, apparently. If you're somewhat sympathetic to the Prince's plight, as regards the inevitable devotion of himself to kingship, Bloom dismisses you as a cipher in a Fascist bureaucracy ("You have your reward", he sternly tells us). I would remind the amusingly anarchist Professor that at the end of *Henry IV II*, Hal, while banishing Falstaff and the gang, only banishes them from within 10 miles of the King's person, and he does say that they will be promoted according to each of their abilities -- surely this is pretty fair treatment? Not quite the expulsion from Eden Bloom makes it out to be. Also, the good Prof might have overcome his fondness for wishing that these characters could "hang out" in each other's plays. Why the heck does he want to see Falstaff in the Forest of Arden (*As You Like It*)? What would Falstaff do there? The fat knight belongs in a history play, not a cheerful romance -- there, he would be superfluous. Indeed, his treating of Shakespeare's major characters as "real" persons is rather unnerving. ("Dude, get a life" forms on my lips.) Which, of course, leads to his central thesis, that Shakespeare invented human personality. This is pure gas. He should've dropped that theory (which he, frankly, doesn't spend a whole lot of time on) and simply called the book *One Man's Opinion on Shakespeare* -- a more accurate title. Finally, I must concur with Bloom that the relentless theorizing of these plays, as practiced in our universities, have darn-near destroyed whatever simple aesthetic rewards that they offered in the first place. His indictment of this "School of Resentment", as he terms it, is repeated often and is almost worth the price of the book all by itself.
Rating:
Summary: Bloom is brilliant
Review: This is perhaps one of the best Shakespeare criticism books I've picked up in ages (and I have quite a large library of them!). I frequently referred to it in the past year while I was taking two Shakespeare classes, but I also found myself reading it in my spare time! If you're a Shakespeare scholar you'll appreciate how rare it is to find Shakespeare criticism that reads as easily as a novel. It's perfect for students taking Shakespeare 101, but also for more advanced students (It helped a lot in the graduate level Shakespeare course I took). All Shakespeare fanatics should pick up a copy of this book. I don't care how pretentious or opinionated anyone thinks Bloom is. He did an excellent job with this book! Bravo!!!
Rating:
Summary: What Bloom needs is an editor
Review: There are some fine observations about Shakespeare's plays here. But they're almost lost in Bloom's rambling, idiosyncratic, repetitive, and (ultimately) tiresome excesses. The trouble is he's become a "great man" and his publishers didn't have the nerve to say, "Look, Harold, you've already said that five times, don't belabor the point." The central conceit of "the invention of the human" is never explained or justified. But that wouldn't matter if Bloom really provided a useful comment on each of the plays. Alas, too often he doesn't. But he does manage to work in numerous references to Falstaff whether or not Falstaff has anything to do with the play under discussion. I rather enjoyed some of his complaints about academic politics and criticism... the first time I heard them.
Rating:
Summary: High Bardolotry Nonsense
Review: Professor Bloom admits in this book that he is a promoter of "High Bardolotry," the hoary tradition of the veneration of Shakespeare as a revelator of near god-like status. If you go for that sort of thing, then this book is for you. And the book is a tour de force in literay criticism. The author does know his subject, and presents some interesting insights along the way. But at the end of the day, I think most people will conclude that a mentally stable person would never write or much enjoy this book.
Rating:
Summary: Accessible and scholarly
Review: Unlike much literary theory, these essays are accessible to all, and contain many good insights. Bloom's thesis, however, is completely overblown. Shakespeare was a great writer. Certainly. The greatest genius ever to write for the stage. Debatable, but a reasonable claim, to be sure. But inventing human personality? Has he not read his Chaucer?
Rating:
Summary: A celebration of nihilism but it wears on you
Review: Maybe I shouldn't have read this book in a week. Maybe I should have savored it over the course of a month, coming to each essay spaced out with a day in between. Maybe then I wouldn't feel the great weight of Falstaff and Hamlet bearing down on me. I wouldn't be annoyed every time I read that Hamlet was the poet genius or that Falstaff was the quintessential human for the millionth time. Harold Bloom chooses to focus on the nihilist aspects of many of these characters and that is good. He is alsoa fan of his subject which is always better than an academic trying to make a name for himself. He has his opinions and at times they affect the essays in ways unexpected (the five page treatment of Merry Wives of Windsor which cmoes down to "Shakespeare ruined Falstaff") Some of his insights are amaznig and others are so-so. Here's where teh book wears on you - psychoanalysis of Shakespeare including the bogus competition with Marlowe (even Bloom points out that had Shakespeare died at 29 he'd only have Richard III and a few comedies to clue anyone into the fact that he was a good playwright) and later Johnson. There's also Bloom's swipes at productions that don't do Shakespeare the way that he sees it. Directors and actors who have different interpretatino of Shakespeare bother Bloom and since he got many of his interpretations from productions of his youth, he's a Shakespeare Early Days snob. The last chapter also reveals that Harold Bloom reads Shakespeare like a good English major not understanding that Shakespeare is Theatre, not English and even though he uses the audiences of centuries to prove that shakespeare is still popular that doesn't stop him from the English professor snobbery ni thinknig that Shakespeare should eb read instead of acted. Good book. Some nice essays, the overall theme is bogus, but it's still a good book.
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