Ruin the Sacred Truths: Poetry and Belief from the Bible to the PresentHarold Bloom surveys with majestic view the literature of the West from the Old Testament to Samuel Beckett. He provocatively rereads the Yahwist (or J) writer, Jeremiah, Job, Jonah, the Iliad, the Aeneid, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, the Henry IV plays, Paradise Lost, Blake’s Milton, Wordsworth’s Prelude, and works by Freud, Kafka, and Beckett. In so doing, he uncovers the truth that all our attempts to call any strong work more sacred than another are merely political and social formulations. This is criticism at its best. |
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Page 170
... Kafka through his writing ; " all such writing is an assault on the fron- tiers , " and these must now be Kafka's own frontiers . One thinks of Freud's most complex frontier concept , more com- plex even than the drive : the bodily ego ...
... Kafka through his writing ; " all such writing is an assault on the fron- tiers , " and these must now be Kafka's own frontiers . One thinks of Freud's most complex frontier concept , more com- plex even than the drive : the bodily ego ...
Page 171
... Kafka spend his genius in the act of new creation of the old Jewish centuries ? Kafka certainly would have judged himself harshly as one spent withal , rather than as a writer who " only then be- gan to flower forth . " Kafka died only ...
... Kafka spend his genius in the act of new creation of the old Jewish centuries ? Kafka certainly would have judged himself harshly as one spent withal , rather than as a writer who " only then be- gan to flower forth . " Kafka died only ...
Page 181
... Kafka's negative , unlike Freud's , is uneasily and remotely descended from the ancient tradition of negative theology , and perhaps even from that most negative of ancient theologies , Gnosticism , and yet Kafka , despite his yearnings ...
... Kafka's negative , unlike Freud's , is uneasily and remotely descended from the ancient tradition of negative theology , and perhaps even from that most negative of ancient theologies , Gnosticism , and yet Kafka , despite his yearnings ...
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Ruin the Sacred Truths: Poetry and Belief from the Bible to the Present Harold Bloom Limited preview - 1991 |
Ruin the Sacred Truths: Poetry and Belief from the Bible to the Present Harold Bloom Limited preview - 1991 |
Common terms and phrases
Achilles Aeneid agonistic allegory ambivalence authority Beatrice Beckett believe biblical Blake bodily ego Book Book of Job C. S. Lewis called Christian cognitive critics crucial Dante Dante's death despite divine doorkeeper drive dualism Edmund everything Falstaff father fiction Fortinbras Freccero freedom Freud Freudian Gershom Scholem Gloucester Gnostic Gracchus Greek Hamlet heavens Hebrew Bible Hegelian hero Homer Horatio human Iago Iago's Iliad interpretation irony J's Yahweh Jeremiah Jewish Jewish memory Jews Judaism Kabbalah Kafka King Klamm Lear Lear's literary means Milton mode monism Moses negation negative never Nietzsche normative Odradek originality Othello parable Paradise Lost passion pathos perhaps poem poet poetic poetry precursor Prelude prophet represent representation rhetoric Satan Scholem seems sense Shakespeare speak spirit stance story strong sublime superego thou tion Torah tradition transcendence trope truth Turnus uncanny Virgil vision Weiskel word Wordsworth writer Yahweh Yahwist