Synopses & Reviews
In this inspiring book, Harold Bloom, our preeminent literary critic, takes us from the Bible to twentieth-century writing, searching for the ways in which literature can inform our lives. Through comparisons of the Book of Job and Ecclesiastes; Plato and Homer; Cervantes and Shakespeare; Montaigne and Bacon; Johnson and Goethe; Emerson and Nietzsche; Freud and Proust; and finally a discussion of the Gospel of Thomas and St. Augustine,
Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? distills for us the various and even contrary forms of wisdom that have shaped our thinking.
For anyone who reads to find meaning, Bloom's new book will not only further understanding but also send readers with renewed enthusiasm and urgency back to the pages of the writers who have contributed most to our sense of who are. It is a profound and illuminating work that itself is certain to become part of our literary canon.
Review
"The latest from the venerable Bloom...may not always be easy going, but it's invariably rewarding and rich...Another work of uncompromised literary analysis, thought, and feeling, from the mind of Bloom: towering, real, invaluable." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"A critic who writes this well has a right to instruct us, even imperiously but the best thing about Harold Bloom is that he would be disappointed if we did not resist." Andrew Delbanco, The New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
In one of his most inspiring books yet, Harold Bloom, our preeminent literary critic, takes the reader from the Bible through the twentieth century, searching for the ways literature can inform lives. Through comparisons of the Book of Job and Ecclesiastes, Plato and Homer, Johnson and Goethe, Cervantes and Shakespeare, Montaigne and Bacon, Emerson and Nietzsche, Freud and Proust, and finally discussions of the Gospel of Thomas and St. Augustine, Bloom distills the various—and even contrary—forms of wisdom that have shaped our thinking.
About the Author
Harold Bloom is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University and a former Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard. His more than twenty-five books include Hamlet; Genius; How to Read and Why; Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human; The Western Canon; The Book of J; and The Anxiety of Influence. He is a MacArthur Prize Fellow, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the recipient of many awards and honorary degrees, including the Academy's Gold Medal for Belles Lettres and Criticism, the International Prize of Catalonia, and the Alfonso Reyes Prize of Mexico.