To read Harold Bloom is to glean insights to one of the Bard's most quoted fans. I love King Lear and this book opened my eyes to a handful of things that were previously unknown to me. Do not be intimidated by Bloom's background. The tome is accessible and does not feel academic.

Anyone who's read much Shakespeare apologia has certainly encountered the works of Harold Bloom. Lear: The Great Image of Authority is the third book in Bloom's "Shakespeare's Personalities" series. I had quite enjoyed the second volume on <em>Cleopatra</em> and looked forward to this volume.

Unfortunately this one did not work quite so well for me.

This felt like a director's notes on a play's character - which could be really fascinating if it revealed something new or had some insight that hasn't already been presented by many other writers and directors. And the writing examines Edgar, Goneril, and Regan as much as it does Lear. At one point I actually flipped back to the beginning to make sure I had the correct subtitle and that it wasn't something more along the lines of "The Effects of Edgar on the great King."

I'm not sure, but half this book might just be dialog pulled from Shakespeare's play. I can read (or watch) the play myself - more analysis of the dialog, and how it defines a character would have been welcomed. Yes, there was some, but it was rather pedantic.

Bloom has written some wonderfully introspective works. but regretfully, this isn't one of them. I'll look forward to the next volume in the series, but with hopes that it will be more of a "Personality" retrospective rather than a director's moderate character analysis.

Looking for a good book? Harold Bloom's Lear does not live up to the "Shakespeare's Personalities" series, but might be a fine book for anyone directing the play but doesn't want to do their own research.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

I read Shakespeare's King Lear in high school, and in two college courses, and I taught it to my son while homeschooling. It is my favorite tragedy. So when I saw NetGalley had Harold Bloom's Lear: The Great Image of Authority I thought, cool! A chance to revisit my favorite tragedy!

And it was wonderful to read those familiar lines again. But I am sad to say...I did not enjoy Bloom's interjected comments about the play. I was lifted by Shakespeare's words then dunked in cold water, trudging through commentary until I got back to the Bard.

Not to say that Bloom did not offer ideas or insights or connections new to me. And he communicates his personal responses and joy.

I am shocked that I did not enjoy this. What can I say? But this presentation may work in a classroom lecture with students who had read the complete play and come ready to dissect it did not work for me.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Harold Bloom is a much-lauded Shakespeare expert. I feel like in this examination of a character as complex as King Lear, he was resting on his laurels. Much of the time, Lear was a forgotten character as the motivations of Goneril, Regan, Edgar, and Edmund were examined in great detail. While it was fascinating reading, I don't feel like I got the in-depth character study of Lear that I was expecting. Despite this, it was still worth reading - Bloom's analysis was incisive and well-supported, and I gained new insights into the play.

Bloom has written some GREAT books on literature. This isn't one of them. There were no startling new interprerations, particularly for those who have already studied King Lear.
Perhaps those approaching King Lear for the first time will find this helpful.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The cover of Harold Bloom’s ‘Lear’ features Lord Olivier’s Emmy award-winning performance in that role in 1983. Olivier was then in his mid-seventies and had already started the process of lending his illustrious name and reputation to unworthy vehicles, such as ‘The Betsy’ and ‘Dracula’, in order to have a nest egg for his extreme old age.

A cynic might see a parallel in Bloom’s series of five short books on Shakespeare’s personalities, which was suggested by his literary agent, Glen Hartley, and of which this is one. However, whereas the aging Olivier was reputedly sometimes lost for words on set, this charge cannot be levelled against Bloom, now, like Lear, a man in his eighties, although as was the case with Bloom’s ‘Cleopatra’ in the same series (which I’ve reviewed elsewhere), an awful lot of the words Bloom uses in this book are not his own but Shakespeare’s, or what he sometimes takes to be Shakespeare’s, as he has boldly corrected the latest Arden text, when he has judged “traditional emendations to be mistaken”.

Bloom’s book is subtitled ‘The Great Image of Authority’ and he writes with enormous authority, arising from a lifetime’s scholarship and reflection, on the tragic character whose very countenance, for Kent, exudes Authority.

This is not to say that Bloom’s interpretation of the text aspires to be definitive. He writes, for example, that Lear’s “violent expressionism desires us to experience his inmost being, but we lack the resources to receive that increasing chaos”, so that whilst one can “brood endlessly on Falstaff, Hamlet, Cleopatra, Iago and Macbeth” this does not apply to Lear and Edgar “who transcend the limits of thought”. Similarly, finding it “useless to speculate” about Shakespeare’s precise “religious orientation”, Bloom is content to note that the play’s “accents” are not those of “Christian optimism”, and does not pursue the matter further.

Given the above, Bloom’s commentary on the play’s ending is as stark as Lear’s heath but before one arrives at that bleak point it is a privilege to see the play through Bloom’s compassionate and informed gaze.