Hamlet: Poem Unlimited [Hardcover]

Harold Bloom (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 10, 2003

In his New York Times bestseller Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, Harold Bloom showed us how Shakespeare shaped human consciousness and addressed the question of authorship in Hamlet. In Hamlet: Poem Unlimited, our most celebrated critic turns his attention to a reading of the play itself and to Shakespeare's most enigmatic and memorable character.

Hamlet: Poem Unlimited is Bloom's attempt to uncover the mystery of both Prince Hamlet and the play itself, how both prince and drama are able to break through the conventions of theatrical mimesis and the representation of character, making us question the very nature of theatrical illusion. In twenty-five brief chapters, Bloom takes us through the major soliloquies, scenes, characters, and action of the play, to explore the enigma at the heart of the drama, that is central to its universal appeal.

Every reader of Shakespeare will delight in this step-by-step analysis by our most beloved critic.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The Prince of Denmark, argues the eminent Bloom, was not much loved by his father the warrior king or by his mother, Queen Gertrude. Developing themes from his Shakespeare: Invention of the Human, Bloom adds that Hamlet was instead rather detached, moving through life rather like the lead in his own personal drama, giving a theatrical flair to moments such as the death of Polonius and aptly choosing a play to "catch the conscience of the king." The closest thing he ever had to a parent was Yorick the Jester, and his confrontation with Yorick's skull followed shortly by his attending Ophelia's funeral dealt a serious double blow to his indifference. It was then that he moves grimly toward the climax and his own death. Bloom generates any number of provocative themes, such as Hamlet's notions about plays and acting as reflecting Shakespeare's own rivalries with Ben Jonson, and that the prince never loved Ophelia. Some of the chapters are really too short to do justice to their topics, raising more questions than answers. Nor is the last third of the book, on the play's place in our cultural heritage, up to the parts that focus on its contents, though it features fewer off-putting attacks on political correctness than Bloom's more polemical works. Still, this is not a tyro's book; Bloom makes no concessions to readers who lack a deep familiarity with the play. Nor is it for any reader with a thin skin about Bloom's assumptions about the Anglo-European literary legacy. Short, sophisticated and opinionated, this is a thorny goodie for Bardolators and Bloomians.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

One of our great Shakespeare scholars investigates one the Bard's greatest characters.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 154 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover; First Edition edition (March 10, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 157322233X
• ISBN-13: 978-1573222334
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #712,923 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Is it "sullied" or "solid flesh"?, April 20, 2003

By 

JR Pinto (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hamlet: Poem Unlimited (Hardcover)

I think that the other, negative, reviews are the result of expecting some kind of senior thesis. I, for one, am glad he doesn't spend much time quoting other scholars. The problem with thesis-country is that it tends to be boring. I think that the spirit of the book is the very personal feelings that Hamlet invokes for Harold Bloom. While I do not agree completely with Bloom's interpretation of Hamlet, it has given me much to consider. Without question, Bloom does prove that Hamlet is eternal, and will continue to be studied, puzzled over, and - most importantly - enjoyed.

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "In my heart there was a kind of fighting", March 30, 2003

By 

G. Merritt (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hamlet: Poem Unlimited (Hardcover)

Professor Bloom (THE WESTERN CANON) knows his Shakespeare. In HAMLET: POEM UNLIMITED, he enthusiastically shows why D. H. Lawrence was correct in his observation that "the soliloquies of Hamlet are as deep as the soul of man can go . . . and as sincere as the Holy Spirit itself in their essence" (p. 9). "Of all poems," Bloom writes, HAMLET "is the most unlimited. As a meditation upon human fragility in confrontation with death, it competes only with the world's scriptures" (p. 3).

Bloom wrote this 154-page commentary on Shakespeare's four-thousand line play as a "postlude" to SHAKESPEARE: THE INVENTION OF THE HUMAN(1998), and he assumes his reader already has an in-depth familiarity with the play (my only real criticism of the book, albeit a small criticism). He presents Hamlet as the "neglected child" of a warrior-king father and a "sexual magnate" mother (pp. 4-5), influenced more by the royal court jester, Yorick, than anyone, and ultimately at war with himself. In his lively, opionated style, Bloom cautions us not to "condescend" to the Prince of Denmark, for Hamlet, we are instructed, "is more intelligent than you are, whoever you are" (p. 86). In his short book, which reads like a series of lecture notes, Bloom not only triumphs in teaching us who Hamlet is, but he successfully illuminates the secret of his subject's "charismatic eminence" (p. 109). Bardolators will not be disappointed.

G. Merritt

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hamlet Poem Unlimited, March 5, 2006

By 

Jon H. Orloff (Bethesda, Maryland) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hamlet: Poem Unlimited (Paperback)

It is not often that one reads a book about a Shakespeare play and needs about half a dozen other books - including a dictionary - nearby for reference. But it is absolutely worth the effort - reading this book is an education.