FROM OUR EDITORS

In his popular and critically acclaimed Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, Harold Bloom explored the central influence of the Bard on Western civilization. Here, our most revered literary critic delves into the mysteries of Shakespeare's most famous drama, the tragedy of Hamlet. In 25 compact chapters, Bloom discusses the melancholy Prince of Denmark and the enigma at the heart of the play that bears his name.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In Harold Bloom's New York Times bestseller Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, the world's foremost literary critic theorized on the authorship of Hamlet. In this engaging new stand-alone work, he offers a full and warmly personal account of the play itself, explores its extraordinary impact throughout history, and seeks to uncover the mystery at its heart.

Author Biography: Harold Bloom is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University, Berg Professor of English at New York University, and a former Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard. The author of more than 20 books, including Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, he is a MacArthur Prize fellow and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He received the Gold Medal for Belles Lettres and Criticism from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and he was awarded the International Prize of Catalonia.

FROM THE CRITICS

Washington Times

A quick and easy read, filled with the pleasures for which Mr. Bloom is justly famous.

New York Review of Books

The indispensable critic on the indispensable writer.

New York Sun

Mr. Bloom revises, develops, intensifies, and expands his thinking on a subject he has been pondering for many years.

Publishers Weekly

The Prince of Denmark, argues the eminent Bloom, was not much loved by his father the warrior king or by his mother, Queen Gertrude. Developing themes from his Shakespeare: Invention of the Human, Bloom adds that Hamlet was instead rather detached, moving through life rather like the lead in his own personal drama, giving a theatrical flair to moments such as the death of Polonius and aptly choosing a play to "catch the conscience of the king." The closest thing he ever had to a parent was Yorick the Jester, and his confrontation with Yorick's skull followed shortly by his attending Ophelia's funeral dealt a serious double blow to his indifference. It was then that he moves grimly toward the climax and his own death. Bloom generates any number of provocative themes, such as Hamlet's notions about plays and acting as reflecting Shakespeare's own rivalries with Ben Jonson, and that the prince never loved Ophelia. Some of the chapters are really too short to do justice to their topics, raising more questions than answers. Nor is the last third of the book, on the play's place in our cultural heritage, up to the parts that focus on its contents, though it features fewer off-putting attacks on political correctness than Bloom's more polemical works. Still, this is not a tyro's book; Bloom makes no concessions to readers who lack a deep familiarity with the play. Nor is it for any reader with a thin skin about Bloom's assumptions about the Anglo-European literary legacy. Short, sophisticated and opinionated, this is a thorny goodie for Bardolators and Bloomians. (Mar.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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