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 98
... remains the marvelous scandal of the poem . In Satan , Miltonic transumption has triumphed permanently , so that every sub- sequent Satan , including the unhappy Tempter in Paradise Regained , seems an outdone precursor of the ...
... remains the marvelous scandal of the poem . In Satan , Miltonic transumption has triumphed permanently , so that every sub- sequent Satan , including the unhappy Tempter in Paradise Regained , seems an outdone precursor of the ...
Page 124
... by John Ashbery . Merrill has flirted with such a mode in parts of The Changing Light at Sandover , while Ashbery spookily verges upon such moments in Litany and A Wave . Blake remains unique among 124 ENLIGHTENMENT AND ROMANTICISM.
... by John Ashbery . Merrill has flirted with such a mode in parts of The Changing Light at Sandover , while Ashbery spookily verges upon such moments in Litany and A Wave . Blake remains unique among 124 ENLIGHTENMENT AND ROMANTICISM.
Page 138
... remains our archetype of the strong modern poet . Who since him , in any Western language , has been able to compete with him ? For almost two centuries now , Wordsworth has tri- umphed in the agon of the sublime , despite Hölderlin and ...
... remains our archetype of the strong modern poet . Who since him , in any Western language , has been able to compete with him ? For almost two centuries now , Wordsworth has tri- umphed in the agon of the sublime , despite Hölderlin and ...
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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