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
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Page 7
... sense that E. P. Thompson , the English Marxist historian , called Shakespeare “ the old Adam of the English idiom , " and in the more recent sense in which Freud has usurped our diction for describing all psychic instances , agencies ...
... sense that E. P. Thompson , the English Marxist historian , called Shakespeare “ the old Adam of the English idiom , " and in the more recent sense in which Freud has usurped our diction for describing all psychic instances , agencies ...
Page 40
... sense is a fiction , and the second or allegorical sense is the true one ; thus , Or- pheus and his music constitute a fiction , but it is true that Or- phic wisdom tames cruel hearts . In biblical or theological allegory , the literal ...
... sense is a fiction , and the second or allegorical sense is the true one ; thus , Or- pheus and his music constitute a fiction , but it is true that Or- phic wisdom tames cruel hearts . In biblical or theological allegory , the literal ...
Page 174
... sense in that only because in Kafka's world as in Freud's , or in Scholem's , or in any world deeply informed by Jewish memory , there is necessarily sense in every- thing , total sense , even though Kafka refuses to aid you in get ...
... sense in that only because in Kafka's world as in Freud's , or in Scholem's , or in any world deeply informed by Jewish memory , there is necessarily sense in every- thing , total sense , even though Kafka refuses to aid you in get ...
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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