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 7
... called Yahweh . When that over - literalization reaches its final point , then what Blake satirized as our vision of God as Urizen or No- bodaddy , a cloudy old man hovering up in the sky . Yet , in the Sinai Theophany , J shows us a ...
... called Yahweh . When that over - literalization reaches its final point , then what Blake satirized as our vision of God as Urizen or No- bodaddy , a cloudy old man hovering up in the sky . Yet , in the Sinai Theophany , J shows us a ...
Page 110
... called the dark idolatry of self . Nietzsche urged us to take the final step and have the grace to forgive ourselves , after which the whole drama of fall and redemption would be worked through within each of us . Satan , never less ...
... called the dark idolatry of self . Nietzsche urged us to take the final step and have the grace to forgive ourselves , after which the whole drama of fall and redemption would be worked through within each of us . Satan , never less ...
Page 164
... called the egoistic body , because Freud's crucial metaphor is that of inwardness itself . " Inwardness " is the true name of the bodily ego . The defensive disorderings of the drive , or the vicissitudes of instinct , are fig- ures of ...
... called the egoistic body , because Freud's crucial metaphor is that of inwardness itself . " Inwardness " is the true name of the bodily ego . The defensive disorderings of the drive , or the vicissitudes of instinct , are fig- ures of ...
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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