Summary
Bloom's Classic Critical Views offers a selection of the finest classic criticism on the authors most commonly read in high school and college classes today. Whereas the popular Bloom's Modern Critical Views series provides the best contemporary criticism on great authors, this series attempts to place these enduring authors in the context of their time and to provide criticism that has proved over the years to be the most valuable to readers and writers. Most of the essays featured in this unique collection are from the 19th and early 20th centuries; selections range from reviews in popular magazines, which demonstrate how a work was received in its own era, to profound essays by some of the strongest critics in the British and American tradition, including Henry James, G.K. Chesterton, Matthew Arnold, and many more. The most important essays are introduced and contextualized by contemporary scholars, who point out how the essays could be useful to a student writing a paper.
Each title features:
- An in-depth critical portrait of an essential writer presented in a historical context
- A useful chronology
- An introductory essay by Harold Bloom.
About the Author(s)
Harold Bloom is Sterling Professor of the Humanities at Yale University. Educated at Cornell and Yale universities, he is the author of 30 books, including Shelley's Mythmaking (1959), The Visionary Company (1961), Blake's Apocalypse (1963), Yeats (1970), A Map of Misreading (1975), Kabbalah and Criticism (1975), Agon: Toward a Theory of Revisionism (1982), The American Religion (1992), The Western Canon (1994), Omens of Millennium: The Gnosis of Angels, Dreams, and Resurrection (1996), and Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (1998), a 1998 National Book Award finalist. The Anxiety of Influence (1973) sets forth Professor Bloom's provocative theory of the literary relationships between the great writers and their predecessors. His most recent books include How to Read and Why (2000), Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds (2002), Hamlet: Poem Unlimited (2003), Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? (2004), Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine (2005), and The Anatomy of Influence (2011). In addition, he is the author of hundreds of articles, reviews, and editorial introductions. In 1999, Professor Bloom received the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Criticism. He has also received the International Prize of Catalonia, the Alfonso Reyes Prize of Mexico, and the Hans Christian Andersen Bicentennial Prize of Denmark.