Another one of Harold Bloom’s short guiding texts about one of Shakespeare’s plays. In these text (and I think this is the first of them, and the inspiration for the others) Bloom takes on the play either in order, thematically, or both and does both general and close-readings of them. At times the text is at the level of general musings and other times in depth, including with some additional reference at times. The title of the book comes this speech by Polonius: The best […]

A kind of guide to Macbeth that I wonder how useful it actually is. The book itself clearly needs you to have read Macbeth and be familiar with the plot because while this book goes in order, it’s not particularly well-structured or seem all that concerned with guiding you through the text as a whole. Instead, Harold Bloom walks you through various lines, exchanges, speeches, and other things and gives you some line-readings, some close-reading, some historiography about certain elements, and occasionally some reference to […]