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In Our Time

Shakespeare and Literary Criticism

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.69.8K Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 1999

⏱️ 27 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the enduring popular and academic appeal of Shakespeare. Did he invent the human personality as we inhabit it now? Professor Harold Bloom claims:“Shakespeare is universal. Shakespeare is the true multicultural author. One has to ask the biblical question “Where shall wisdom be found? And I suppose for me the answer is: wisdom is to be found in Shakespeare provided you get at it in the right way.”But why does Shakespeare still hold the popular and indeed academic imagination in the twentieth century? Should we read him above all others as Harold Bloom suggests in the way he suggests? And what does this say about the state of literary criticism today? With Harold Bloom, literary critic, Professor of Humanities, Yale University and Berg Professor of English, New York University; Jacqueline Rose, literary critic and Professor of English, University of London.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Thanks for downloading the in-artime podcast. For more details about in-artime and for our terms of use

0:05.4

Please go to bbc.co.uk forward slash radio 4. I hope you enjoy the program

0:12.0

Hello, he's been voted by radio 4 listeners as the man of the millennium and the American literary critic Harold Bloom claims

0:18.6

Quote Shakespeare is universal Shakespeare is the true multicultural author one has to ask the biblical question

0:25.7

Where shall wisdom be found? And I suppose for me the answer is wisdom is to be found in Shakespeare

0:31.8

Provided you get it in the right way, unquote

0:35.2

But why should we read Shakespeare above all others as Harold Bloom suggests and in the way he suggests and what does this say about the state of

0:42.9

Literacriticism today

0:44.2

Harold Bloom has been described as the most read most controversial and quite probably the most influential

0:49.0

Literacritic of the latter half of the 20th century

0:52.0

Conantly professor of humanities at Yale University and Burke professor of English at New York University

0:56.8

He's the author of more than 20 books including the best selling Western canon and the anxiety of influence in his latest book

1:03.1

Shakespeare the invention of the human he claims that Shakespeare essentially invented human personality as we continue to know and value it

1:09.8

And furthermore was the inventor of Freudian psychology

1:13.5

Jacqueline Rose is professor of English at the University of London

1:16.3

She's one of this country's leading literature critics known for her pioneering psychoanalytic and feminist interpretations of literature like Bloom

1:23.6

She's passionate about reading but claims there's no one right way of reading

1:28.8

Professor Bloom you say that Shakespeare invented human personality

1:33.0

In fact, you're going to say I do not know whether God created Shakespeare, but I do know that Shakespeare created us and

1:40.2

And of Hamlet whom you write about with all and passion throughout the book

1:46.0

You write we cannot think of ourselves as separate without thinking about Hamlet. Could we talk about this?

1:53.6

Insofar as we are all of us

...

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