Σαίξπηρ
Harold Bloom, 1998
Harold Bloom's case for Shakespeare as the inventor of the self-aware character: a lifetime of reading distilled into an argument about how fictional people learned to change.
Harold Bloom
Bloom writes as a reader who has spent decades inside the same books, and the pleasure of his pages is the sound of an argument being made in good faith, with the texts open beside him. «Σαίξπηρ» is the place to start: it is his fullest account of how characters in Shakespeare come to seem capable of changing their minds, and it shows you his method at its clearest. «Ο Δαίμων Ξέρει» is the later, more personal book, twelve American writers read against the thing in each of them that drove the work, and it shares with the Shakespeare book a conviction that reading closely is worth the effort.
Feels like identity, awe and curiosity.
Start with Σαίξπηρ.
Bloom claimed to have read Shakespeare's complete works a thousand times over; he taught at Yale for over half a century and wrote the book late in life, out loud, as was his habit.
Before Shakespeare, characters changed their relation to God, not to themselves.
Οἱ λογοτεχνικοὶ χαρακτῆρες πρὶν ἀπ ᾽ τὸν Σαίξπηρ παραμένουν σχετικὰ ἀμετάβλητοι. Γυναῖκες κι ἄντρες μεγαλώνουν, γερνοῦν καὶ πεθαίνουν, χωρὶς ὅμως ν ᾽ ἀλλάζουν, κυρίως διότι ἔχει διαϕοροποιηθεῖ ἡ σχέση τους πρὸς τὸ θεὸ ἢ τοὺς θεούς, κι ὄχι πρὸς τὸν ἑαυτό τους. Στὸν Σαίξπηρ οἱ χαρακτῆρες δὲν ἀποκαλύπτονται ἁπλῶς, παρὰ ξ ε τ υ λ ίγ ο ν τ α ι, στὴν κυριολεξία, ἐπειδὴ ἀνακαλύπτουν ἐκ νέου τὸν ἑαυτό τους. ᾽ Ενίοτε αὐτὸ συμβαίνει γιατὶ ϕαίνεται σὰ νά «κρυϕακοῦν» τοὺς ἑαυτούς τους νὰ μιλᾶνε - εἴτε μονολογῶντας, εἴτε συζητῶντας μ᾽ ἄλλους. Αὐτὸς εἶν ᾽ ὁ δρόμος γιὰ τὴν αὐθυπαρξία τους. Books by Harold Bloom
Ο Δαίμων Ξέρει
Harold Bloom, 2019
A dying critic's last argument with the American books that made him: twelve writers, one demon inside each of them, and what reading them can still do for you.
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