Ruin the Sacred Truths: Poetry and Belief from the Bible to the Present (Charles Eliot Norton Lectures) [Paperback]

Harold Bloom (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1991 | ISBN-10: 0674780280 | ISBN-13: 978-0674780286

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Taking Oscar Wilde's premise that criticism is "the only civilized form of autobiography," Bloom uses the 1987-88 Norton Lectures to present his personal encounter with Western authors from the author of the Hebrew Bible to Freud and Beckett. Specifically, Bloom considers the poet's struggle with the boundaries of meaning and truth to represent God. He denies, however, that poetry can represent belief. It is instead, he argues, an attempt to represent the unrepresentablethat is, the sublime. The discussion also reexamines Bloom's earlier preoccupation with influence as well as favorite authors such as Blake and Stevens. The result is often provoking, but always stimulating. T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong State Coll., Savannah, Ga.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Bloom's puissance is not entirely his own; for some of it, he is indebted to Nietzsche, Freud, Schopenhauer, Gershom Scholem, and other masters. But enough of it is his own to constitute a distinctive form of splendor.
--Denis Donoghue (New York Review of Books )

The wit, the eclecticism and the gripping paradoxes...the force of [Bloom's] intellect carries the reader from pinnacle to pinnacle, showing a new spiritual landscape from each.
--Roger Scruton (Washington Times )

In some ways the wildest of the wild men (and women), in some ways the most traditional of the traditionalists, Harold Bloom remains serene amid the turbulence--much of it caused by him. He stands dauntless, a party of one, as thrilling to behold up on the high wire as he is (at times) throttling to read on the page...From this strong critic dealing with these strong poets comes a potent mix of insight.
--Mark Feeney (Boston Globe )

Product Details

• Paperback: 214 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (September 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674780280
• ISBN-13: 978-0674780286
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,322,604 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

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The slightly less strong Bloom, April 21, 2009

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Ruin the Sacred Truths: Poetry and Belief from the Bible to the Present (Charles Eliot Norton Lectures) (Paperback)

This is not the best of Bloom. It contains much which will be found in the later bestselling works but here comes in a more disjointed and often lackluster fashion. Bloom too exaggerates here in the name- dropping of critics, in the making of what may seem at times an esoteric set of arguments which only literary critics are capable of understanding. Still as enthusiast and great reader and lover of the world's best Literature Bloom provides much here worth reading and thinking about.
This is not an easy work to read, and the arguments are often tangled. But it is like all of bloom's work rich in ideas , and interesting suggestions.