The Labyrinth

Bloom's Literary Themes

by Harold Bloom (Editor), Blake Hobby (Editor)

- Original essays and excerpts from published critical analyses that discuss the role of the title theme in various works
- An index for easy reference
- An introductory essay by Harold Bloom.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction

224 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 28, 2009

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

[Sylvia Flora · Rating 3 out of 5]

This series of essays had a lot of promise when I went into reading it. The authors cover a wide range of works of poetry and fiction (from Ovid to Borges to Shakespeare to Eco), but some are better and more analytical than others. The most thought-provoking essay I found was the one about the Faerie Queen and how labyrinthine structures and temple structures symbolically and literally function in the verse novel. Also, the almost expected essay on Borges's "Garden of Forking Paths" proved good (interesting to note that the short story does not have the non-linear structure often associated with it). Because the topic interests me greatly, and in spite of some questionable essays, I still really enjoyed this book.

[Josephine Ensign · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although a bit ponderous in places (literary criticism tends to be that way), I was intrigued by this collection of essays by various authors on the theme/metaphor of labyrinths, something I'm currently fixated on in my own writing and art.