The Author, Harold Bloom

The author, Harold Bloom, has many opinions about Shakespeare and about Shakespeare's plays. The author tends to reject modernist and politically correct versions of Shakespeare and search for a more traditional outlook on Shakespeare. Radical ideas on Shakespeare production are roundly criticized by him, such as over-sexualizing plays like Twelfth Night, or a Midsummer Night's Dream. The author takes early critics of Shakespeare seriously such as the playwright Ben Jonson, and the later critic Dr. Samuel Johnson. The author does try to give many of Shakespeare's plays an interpretation based on Friedrich Nietzsche's views, which is somewhat disconcerting, with a viewpoint of Hamlet as a wild or Dionysian man. However, the author's idea of Shakespeare being the originator of the modern idea of human personality is certainly a new interpretation of Shakespeare. The author is fascinated by the great scope of the inner psychological life...