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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 45
Page 145
... perhaps in any other representation of our desires . " Important " here means central for an interpretation . Freud's theory of repression , or unconscious yet purposeful forget- ting , is at the center of his vast speculative project ...
... perhaps in any other representation of our desires . " Important " here means central for an interpretation . Freud's theory of repression , or unconscious yet purposeful forget- ting , is at the center of his vast speculative project ...
Page 197
... Perhaps The Castle fails as the Zohar fails , but like the Zohar , Kafka's Castle will go on failing from one era to another . Jonathan Swift , the strongest ironist in English , wrote the prose masterpiece of the language in A Tale of ...
... Perhaps The Castle fails as the Zohar fails , but like the Zohar , Kafka's Castle will go on failing from one era to another . Jonathan Swift , the strongest ironist in English , wrote the prose masterpiece of the language in A Tale of ...
Page 201
... perhaps become possible to feel a whisper of that final music or that silence that underlies All . With such a program , in my opinion , the latest work of Joyce has nothing whatever to do . There it seems rather to be a matter of an ...
... perhaps become possible to feel a whisper of that final music or that silence that underlies All . With such a program , in my opinion , the latest work of Joyce has nothing whatever to do . There it seems rather to be a matter of an ...
Other editions - View all
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