Older readers may wish this clear, concise, empathetic volume were available when they were in school.
The venerable and prolific literary scholar completes his Shakespeare’s Personalities series with a lingering and deeply curious, even troubled, look at the titular character in the legendary play.
Having previously presented brief volumes on Iago, Lear, Cleopatra, and Falstaff, Bloom (Humanities/Yale Univ.) walks us through Macbeth, quoting lengthy passages from the text to illuminate his points. Throughout, the author muses on Macbeth’s “proleptic and prophetic imagination” and wonders—all the way to the final paragraph—what it is about this sanguinary, murderous character that so deeply appeals to audiences. For example, Bloom lingers on the grim and grotesque Macbeth-ordered murder of Macduff’s wife, son, servants. Although Bloom condemns these events (more than once and unequivocally: “his greatest iniquity”), he also notes that, somehow, we still feel something of a loss when Macduff, later, carries Macbeth’s severed head onto the stage for us to see. Although Bloom’s interpretations are invariably sound and based on a lifetime of reading and teaching the play, there are times when he ventures near the border of the plausible. He suggests, for example, that it’s possible the Macbeths have no children because Macbeth suffers from premature ejaculations. The author also devotes attention to Lady Macbeth, at one point calling her a “fierce virago” who “touches her limit at parricide.” Bloom ends with some tributes to the power of Shakespeare’s language and imagination. “Shakespeare’s bounty, like his Juliet’s, is as boundless as the sea. The more you take, the more he has, for his invention and his love for his characters are alike infinite….For all his negativity, Macbeth’s vitality survives in our hearts....absorbing him heightens of sense of being.”
Older readers may wish this clear, concise, empathetic volume were available when they were in school.Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6425-5
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
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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