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Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human Paperback – September 1, 1999

by Harold Bloom (Author)
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"The indispensable critic on the indispensable writer." -Geoffrey O'Brien, New York Review of Books

A landmark achievement as expansive, erudite, and passionate as its renowned author, this book is the culmination of a lifetime of reading, writing about, and teaching Shakespeare.

Preeminent literary critic-and ultimate authority on the western literary tradition, Harold Bloom leads us through a comprehensive reading of every one of the dramatist's plays, brilliantly illuminating each work with unrivaled warmth, wit and insight. At the same time, Bloom presents one of the boldest theses of Shakespearean scholarships: that Shakespeare not only invented the English language, but also created human nature as we know it today.

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  1. Print length
    768 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Riverhead Books
  4. Publication date
    September 1, 1999
  5. Dimensions
    6.16 x 2 x 9.2 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    157322751X
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1573227513
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

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"The most original literary critic in America." --The New York Times

"No critic in the English language since Samuel Johnson has been more prolific." --The Paris Review

"Bloom is all literature, (he) positively lives it." --Alfred Kazin

From the Back Cover

A landmark achievement -- expansive, erudite, and passionate -- Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human is the culmination of a lifetime of reading, writing about, and teaching Shakespeare. Preeminent literary critic Harold Bloom leads us through a comprehensive reading of every one of the dramatist's plays, brilliantly illuminating each work with unrivaled warmth, wit, and insight. At the same time, Bloom presents one of the boldest theses of Shakespearean scholarship -- that Shakespeare not only reinvented the English language, but also created human nature as we know it today.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Riverhead Books (September 1, 1999)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 768 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 157322751X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1573227513
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.79 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.16 x 2 x 9.2 inches
  • Customer Reviews:

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Harold Bloom

Harold Bloom

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Harold Bloom is a Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University and a former Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard. His more than thirty books include The Best Poems of the English Language, The Art of Reading Poetry, and The Book of J. He is a MacArthur Prize Fellow, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the recipient of many awards and honorary degrees, including the Academy's Gold Medal for Belles Lettres and Criticism, the International Prize of Catalonia, and the Alfonso Reyes Prize of Mexico.

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Top reviews from the United States

Aran Joseph Canes
5.0 out of 5 stars So Much More Than a Commentary
Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2019
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A reader might be forgiven for thinking that Harold Bloom’s Shakespeare The Invention of the Human is merely a set of reflections on the bard’s oeuvre. That is, after all, how many critics have advertised the book. Or you might think that Bloom merely describes with particular vivacity Shakespeare’s obviously fecund imagination in creating the archetypes for modern personas. Bloom does do that but there is so much more.

Bloom’s Shakespeare is not just a creative genius. He is someone, like Nietzsche or Bloom himself, who has struggled—or might even be said to have created—the uniquely modern predicament of existence. According to Bloom, Shakespeare’s universe is essentially Elsinore. That is, we live in a world where we recognize that all is not exactly aright.

Hamlet’s struggle is what to do with such an existence. Try to right all wrongs? But how can one right that fundamental wrong that the work of building a human consciousness is doomed to the dissolution of the body?

Bloom’s Hamlet is then a Dionysian hero, a character who recognizes the Sisyphean nature of human existence. And Bloom sees Shakespeare’s opus as a slowly mounting crescendo toward the plaintive song of Hamlet himself.

In other words, readers cannot simply read Bloom’s descriptions of their favorite plays. Nor can readers rest assured in the thought that Shakespeare has helped create modern personas.

No, they must enter the Shakespearean universe and struggle as much as Jacob wrestled with the angel. Shakespeare is not so much high culture as the finest depiction of what it means to be human.

In a few words, not a book to be taken up lightly. One must be ready to be thrown into combat alongside Shakespeare to really grok the full meaning of this text. I can only encourage the potential reader to enter the ring for a captivating emotional and intellectual experience.
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Greg w
5.0 out of 5 stars Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human Harold Bloom
Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2012
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For all students of the human condition this is a must have.
For those who have wondered what the fuss made over Shakespeare is all about, this work will help you come to terms with this question. Prof Bloom can be controversial, in doing so he displaces complacency in dogma and for that we should all be grateful. Approaching plays armed with a finer resolution I now look for the evidence and while it is not always clear the searching (facilitated and directed by Prof Bloom) being more purposeful, I have found more rewarding and dare I say - exciting. Each play is considered and their contribution to our incremental evolution of the internalized self-object unfolds. Prof Bloom explains that this internalized process is not just enhanced but a result of the way Shakespeare, through his plays, themes and characters and of cause his words creates as it were a mirror through which we see and understand ourselves (and what we are capable of thinking and feeling and doing)as an individual and as a composite of interpersonal interactions. Shakespeare provides us with the concepts in language which allow us to exam (think about and communicate internally and externally) and attribute meaning to experience and in so doing the Human is invented.

The complexity of this spectrum of understanding unfolds through the mounting collection of plays. It seems that the parts within us all in all their fullness, which we feel resonating with Shakespeare may well resonate because they were first elaborated by the Bard and without Shakespeare's elaboration the "Human" may well have awaited "invention" by another.
7 people found this helpful
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Pseudo D
5.0 out of 5 stars Bardolatry
Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2020
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The late critic Harold Bloom loved Shakespeare above all as the center of the western canon. He was
passionate about teaching literature as literature, not as psychology, politics, economics, theology or
other ideologies. The emphasis is not on the stories (the Bard mostly borrowed these from historians or
other writers) but the characters, personalities, and human nature. While Shakespeare was a dramatist,
he was even more a poet, and developed the personalities through this poetry. The sonnets were
certainly poems, but so were the plays.

Among the characters that Bloom emphasizes again and again are Hamlet, Falstaff, Cleopatra,
Macbeth, Iago, Rosalind, Edmund and Lear. He treats the characters as real people, because they
seem more real than a lot of the people in so-called real life. So for instance, in Poem Unlimited
Bloom offers speculation about what Hamlet did, going to England and Germany to learn drama
and other intellectual disciplines. Hamlet has actually surpassed his creator and become an
author in his own right. We quote Hamlet as if we're quoting Socrates or Jesus or Buddha.
These characters are traced through Shakespeare's career development with the comedies,
histories, tragedies and romances (a term that Bloom dislikes for the final plays such as
the Tempest). When it comes to the genres, Shakespeare is beyond genre, as Polonius
showed with his "history-comedy-tragedy" etc. and all the combinations including poem
unlimited.

Besides Hamlet, Bloom's favorite is Falstaff, from Henry IV part I and II. Even though he's
a raunchy big old guy, he is almost as smart as Hamlet and teaches us about joie de vivre
and humor. The apotheosis or death of Cleopatra was the end of an era, as she had been
the lover of Julius Caesar, Pompey, Mark Antony etc. Octavius went on to great political
accomplishments but was not as interesting as the previous generation. But Cleopatra's
death was also the end of Shakespeare's high tragedies.

Bloom shows Shakespeare's development in relation to Chaucer, Marlowe who came
before him, Ben Jonson who was a contemporary, Fletcher who came along toward
the end, and the successor John Milton. Bloom also relates Shakespeare's characters
to others in the western canon such as Dante, Cervantes, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky,
Austen, Coleridge, Melville, Eliot, Joyce, Woolf and Proust.

How does Bloom understand himself? He is a critic in the romantic tradition, along
with Dr. Johnson, AC Bradley, Hazlitt, Swinburne and Goddard. He is passionate about
teaching Shakespeare as literature and not through Freud or Marx. In fact he interprets
Freud through Shakespeare (!) rather than vice versa. This is a very long book but joyfully
quick.
24 people found this helpful
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André
5.0 out of 5 stars Belo
Reviewed in Brazil on November 29, 2023
Verified Purchase
A reverência de Bloom por Shakespeare nos contagia. Aprendemos a amar as obras e as apreciar como uma escritura secular. Fundamental para compreender esse pilar da consciência humana, que é William Shakespeare.
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Ibad Desmukh
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read from a major literary critic
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 14, 2022
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Great book for an introduction to Shakespeare's plays. Page quality is good too.
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Patricia González
5.0 out of 5 stars The invention of the human, Harold Bloom
Reviewed in Spain on May 17, 2021
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Es tal y como se describe y aparece la imagen en la web. Todo perfecto.
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dr george pollard
5.0 out of 5 stars A worthwile investment
Reviewed in Canada on May 22, 2019
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A scholarly, yet accessible read, with the most appropriate material selected from each play. What amounts to annotation is interesting. If you're willing to do a bit of work in exchange for great rewards, this book is for you. dgp
2 people found this helpful
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Kumar Das
5.0 out of 5 stars Worth purchase..
Reviewed in India on October 31, 2019
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Nice
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