Tag Archives: Harold Bloom

“The rhythm is jazz.” — Hart Crane

“What I want to get is … an ‘interior’ form, a form that is so thorough and intense as to dye the words themselves with a pecularity of meaning, slightly different maybe from the ordinary definition of them separate from … Continue reading

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“That is no country for old men.” — William Butler Yeats

“I thought we might bring the halves together if we had a national literature that made Ireland beautiful in the memory, and yet had been freed of provincialism by an exacting criticism, a European pose.” — W.B. Yeats William Butler … Continue reading

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“Language most shows a man. Speak that I may see thee.” — Ben Jonson

“O rare Benn Johnson.” — Jonson’s incorrectly-spelled epitaph in Westminster Abbey It’s his birthday today. Ben Jonson did everything. Plays, poems, satires, elegies, epigrams. His talent was wide and flexible. Everything he wrote feels inevitable. However, as Michael Schmidt writes … Continue reading

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2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Twelfth Night: or, What You Will

My progress: Shakespeare Reading Project Henry VI, parts 1, 2, 3 and Richard III Two Gentlemen of Verona The Taming of the Shrew Titus Andronicus The Comedy of Errors Love’s Labour’s Lost Romeo & Juliet A Midsummer Night’s Dream Richard … Continue reading

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“Literature is the written expression of revolt against expected things.” Happy Birthday to the least happy man ever, Thomas Hardy

“A certain provincialism of feeling is invaluable. It is the essence of individuality, and is largely made up of that crude enthusiasm without which no great thoughts are thought, no great deeds done.” — Thomas Hardy That quote above from … Continue reading

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“[My ambition is to] give something to our literature which will be our own.” — Walt Whitman

“I like to think that eventually he will shame us into becoming Americans again.” — Guy Davenport on Walt Whitman Whitman is the organizing principle behind my review of Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Thunder Revue. Bob Dylan quotes Whitman all the … Continue reading

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2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet

My progress: Shakespeare Reading Project Henry VI, parts 1, 2, 3 and Richard III Two Gentlemen of Verona The Taming of the Shrew Titus Andronicus The Comedy of Errors Love’s Labour’s Lost Romeo & Juliet A Midsummer Night’s Dream Richard … Continue reading

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2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: As You Like It

My progress: Shakespeare Reading Project Henry VI, parts 1, 2, 3 and Richard III Two Gentlemen of Verona The Taming of the Shrew Titus Andronicus The Comedy of Errors Love’s Labour’s Lost Romeo & Juliet A Midsummer Night’s Dream Richard … Continue reading

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2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Julius Caesar

My progress: Shakespeare Reading Project Henry VI, parts 1, 2, 3 and Richard III Two Gentlemen of Verona The Taming of the Shrew Titus Andronicus The Comedy of Errors Love’s Labour’s Lost Romeo & Juliet A Midsummer Night’s Dream Richard … Continue reading

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2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Henry V

My progress: Shakespeare Reading Project Henry VI, parts 1, 2, 3 and Richard III Two Gentlemen of Verona The Taming of the Shrew Titus Andronicus The Comedy of Errors Love’s Labour’s Lost Romeo & Juliet A Midsummer Night’s Dream Richard … Continue reading

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