Mary Shelley

Bloom's Modern Critical Views

by Harold Bloom (Editor)

A collection of critical essays about the works of the British authoress, focusing on her famous novel, "Frankenstein"

216 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1985

About the author

Harold Bloom was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world." After publishing his first book in 1959, Bloom wrote more than 50 books, including over 40 books of literary criticism, several books discussing religion, and one novel. He edited hundreds of anthologies concerning numerous literary and philosophical figures for the Chelsea House publishing firm. Bloom's books have been translated into more than 40 languages. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1995.
Bloom was a defender of the traditional Western canon at a time when literature departments were focusing on what he derided as the "school of resentment" (multiculturalists, feminists, Marxists, and others). He was educated at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, and Cornell University.

Reviews

[Shaunaly Higgins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another great compilation of critical essays presented by one of the most respected, yet controversial literary critics of our time, Harold Bloom. His introductory essay and those that follow, offer us an insight into Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's work and her celebrated novel, "The Modern Prometheus", the original Gothic-Horror Literary Classic. Mary Shelley's deceptively simple tale of Victor Frankenstein and the monstrous creation conceived by an unrestrained imagination, mixes primitively alienating subject matter with fantastical and introspective themes. It was first published almost two hundred years ago! A classic? Yes! Read the original novel and then read these essays and you'll get a better understanding why many consider Mary Shelley to be not only an accomplished literary achievement but a prominent figure of the Romantic movement.

"Ere Babylon was dust,
The Magus Zoroaster, my dear child,
Met his own image walking in the garden.
That apparition, sole of men, he saw.
For know there are two worlds of life and death:
One that which thou beholdest; but the other
Is underneath the grave, where do inhabit
The shadows of all forms that think and live
Till death unite them and they part no more"

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Horror's Twin," "Godlike Science/Unhallowed Arts"