Overview

King Lear is perhaps the most poignant character in literature. The aged, abused monarch is at once the consummate figure of authority and the classic example of the fall from majesty. He is widely agreed to be William Shakespeare's most moving, tragic hero. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom writes about Lear with wisdom, joy, exuberance, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character: Just as we encounter one Emma Bovary or Hamlet when we are seventeen and another when we are forty, Bloom writes about his shifting understanding--over the course of his own lifetime--of Lear, so that this book also explores an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our humanity. Bloom is mesmerizing in the classroom, wrestling with the often tragic choices Shakespeare's characters make. He delivers that kind of exhilarating intimacy, pathos, and clarity in Lear.

Full Product Details

9781665131285

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

Harold Bloom was Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University and Berg Professor of English at New York University. The author of twenty books and the editor of many more, he has been a MacArthur Prize Fellow, a past Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard University, a member of the American Academy, and the recipient of many other awards, honorary degrees, and prizes. Simon Vance is an award-winning actor and an AudioFile Golden Voice with over fifty Earphones Awards and thirteen prestigious Audie Awards. He was named Booklist's very first Voice of Choice in 2008 and an AudioFile Best Voice of 2009.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available