An unguarded, somewhat informal study of poetic struggle and human faith, by the unsinkably prolific Harvard dynast of modern literary criticism. Bloom (Poetry and Repression, Shelley's Mythmaking, etc.) has never been so critically intimate as in this pseudotestimonial on belief and poetry. Personal affinity rather than academic intrigue seems to have determined the literary pantheon surveyed here—beginning with the Hebrew Bible (which he admits to reading in old age as consolation for solitude), ranging through Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Freud, Kafka, and Beckett. Bloom's elusive subject is the "sublime," defined as the realm of spiritual struggle "between truth and meaning" that provides literature its transcendent moments. For Bloom, Shakespearean sublimity lies in the playwright's "cognitive power"—which, as in the figure of Hamlet, "contains cultural history." For Milton, it is supernal ambition—the faith that his own life "incarnated truth." Freud and the Bible share for Bloom an awesome reverence for authority and memory—an obsession he also finds central to sublimity in Kafka and Beckett. Bloom constructs this majestic rubric with his usual erudition and grace, leavened with in-jokes, witticisms, and surprising jests. French theory is one floating target; his own academic importance is another. Finally, there is deadpan: what does one make of Bloom's claim that Milton's Satan is more like Reagan than Freud? Perhaps Bloom's most accessible book, and probably his most endearing: a bounty of coy surprises and typical leaps of brilliance.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1988
ISBN: 0674780280
Page Count: 218
Publisher: Harvard Univ.
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1988
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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