Rating: 
Summary: "In my heart there was a kind of fighting"
Review: Professor Bloom (THE WESTERN CANON) knows his Shakespeare. In HAMLET: POEM UNLIMITED, he enthusiastically shows why D. H. Lawrence was correct in his observation that "the soliloquies of Hamlet are as deep as the soul of man can go . . . and as sincere as the Holy Spirit itself in their essence" (p. 9). "Of all poems," Bloom writes, HAMLET "is the most unlimited. As a meditation upon human fragility in confrontation with death, it competes only with the world's scriptures" (p. 3).Bloom wrote this 154-page commentary on Shakespeare's four-thousand line play as a "postlude" to SHAKESPEARE: THE INVENTION OF THE HUMAN(1998), and he assumes his reader already has an in-depth familiarity with the play (my only real criticism of the book, albeit a small criticism). He presents Hamlet as the "neglected child" of a warrior-king father and a "sexual magnate" mother (pp. 4-5), influenced more by the royal court jester, Yorick, than anyone, and ultimately at war with himself. In his lively, opionated style, Bloom cautions us not to "condescend" to the Prince of Denmark, for Hamlet, we are instructed, "is more intelligent than you are, whoever you are" (p. 86). In his short book, which reads like a series of lecture notes, Bloom not only triumphs in teaching us who Hamlet is, but he successfully illuminates the secret of his subject's "charismatic eminence" (p. 109). Bardolators will not be disappointed. G. Merritt
Rating:
Summary: Great little book
Review: The great thing about this little book is that it should be equally digestible both to those who are familiar with his larger book on Shakespeare, and to those who simply love the play. Bloom's ideas on Shakespeare (and Hamlet) are well known. If those ideas do not take with you, I would still recommend the book. You do not have to believe that Shakespeare "invented" the human or that the plays are best enjoyed not on the stage, but on the page. You don't have to believe these things to appreciate and enjoy Bloom's meditations. You would be hard-pressed after reading this book, however, to refute his assertion that Hamlet the prince is still the most knowing, the most transcendent character in all of literature, a character who is "too big even for the play itself." Bloom asserts that Hamlet's uncanny ability to overhear himself, to overhear his own "cognitive music" and expand his consciousness accordingly (without deforming it) is what makes him such an imposing figure. Hamlet does not overthink things, but rather, as Bloom puts it, "he thinks too well." I never considered "Hamlet" to be avant-garde or experimental in the slightest until I read Bloom, and now I simply cannot think of it any other way.
Rating: 
Summary: Bardolatry Bedevils Bloom
Review: There are so many good treatements of HAMLET. This is not one of them. It's bad on almost all counts: scholarship, unworkable thesis, far too much quoting from primary source with too little analysis. It's a silly little book. But worst of all is the oppressive idolizing of Shakespeare that Bloom parades with glee throughout the book. Far from being a viable point of view, to say nothing of the fact that it's so treadworn as to be a cliche nowadays, Bardolatry is an obstacle to meaningful criticism. Bloom should know better.
Rating: 
Summary: an appendix to Shakespeare: the Invention of the Human
Review: This is a tiny book, but it will please mutual fans of Bloom and Shakespeare. I was thrilled to get it and read it in one afternoon. But in the end, I was a little disappointed. I wanted more! The book lacks a coherent development, explores no single argument, but Bloom is worth reading even when he rambles. I teach Hamlet to college freshmen and probably won't recommend this book to most of them, but I would definitely recommend it to my better students or to my colleagues. However, Bloom's much larger book, Shakespeare: the Invention of the Human, is better.
Rating:
Summary: 200 Pages of Unedited Notes
Review: This is the worst book of Shakespeare criticism I have ever read. Bloom makes no attempt to link one paragraph to the next. It reads like 30 years of lecture notes piled together haphazardly, handed to a graduate student, and entered into a computer over a weekend. He contradicts himself several times. I donated my copy to the library as soon as I was done reading it, so I cannot cite the pages where the contradictions occur; but several times I recall reading a passage where Bloom had just said the exact opposite a few pages earlier. To make matters worse, he even says the bard contradicts HIMself. He points to supposed paradoxes regarding Hamlet's age, stating that his seeming age does not jive with textual evidence that would put his age at about 30. Apparently the point is that if Shakespeare contradicts himself, so can Bloom. Bloom ignores the obvious conclusion that Hamlet is a slacker. He has not grown up yet. That is why his parents tell him to come home from school and not to waste his time as a professional student when he should be learning how to run a kingdom. Some of the book's observations are interesting, but they are glossed over and presented as a random jumble from Bloom's notes. Interespersed between the passages scribbled down from Bloom's lectures are outbursts where Bloom reminds us that Shakespeare is without any question whatsover the greatest writer, in verse or prose, who ever lived. Bloom is a great critic when he still tries, but in this book he was not even trying.
Rating:
Summary: Marvelous criticism for even the north by northwest
Review: Unfortunately Bloom did not edit well, and it is very apparent that the last third was not written in any particular order, nor was it edited to appear that way. However, the little book attains to a quality which only volumes of contemporary poetry nowadays aspire to. The paper's rich texture thoughtfully counterposes the slightly effeminate Roman typeface, and vast quantities of The Bard's own words are very elegantly rendered in an Italic whose serifs and pitch correctly conspire to create an illusion of rotation. There is an audacious humility in using the same stock of paper for the blood red endsheets as all the text, but this emphasises the modesty of the book's consummate perfection. All in all, even though the book is very thin, very short, and narrower than it is tall, the excellence of materials and execution make it fully worth the (...) cover price, for a mass-produced item.
Rating:
Summary: Medley resurrects eidetic joy from rereadings but trails off
Review: Unfortunately Bloom did not edit well, and it is very apparent that the last third was not written in any particular order, nor was it edited to appear that way. However, the little book attains to a quality which only volumes of contemporary poetry nowadays aspire to. The paper's rich texture thoughtfully counterposes the slightly effeminate Roman typeface, and vast quantities of The Bard's own words are very elegantly rendered in an Italic whose serifs and pitch correctly conspire to create an illusion of rotation. There is an audacious humility in using the same stock of paper for the blood red endsheets as all the text, but this emphasises the modesty of the book's consummate perfection. All in all, even though the book is very thin, very short, and narrower than it is tall, the excellence of materials and execution make it fully worth the (...) cover price, for a mass-produced item.
Rating: 
Summary: A "Poem Unlimited" gets short shrift
Review: When an author overflows his pages with hymns to his own religion, expect a limited audience ...the choir? ...a few others if the music soars to great heights? Bloom *does* acknowledge that "Shakespeare is my model and my mortal god..."(p. 2), so "Hamlet: Poem Unlimited" could be seen as his personal testament and hymnal. But as a robe-bearing member of the Bardology choir, I am dissappointed that the symphony of Shakespearean stimulations and provocations Bloom provided in "Invention of the Human" and in "Genius" is weakly orchestrated here. Hamlet is the St. Paul of your church, Professor. Does he not deserve a Missa Solemnis after feeding your soul for so many decades of life? (The volume is a mere 154 pages - and perhaps *half* are quotations of the play.) Because Hamlet so dominates most of Bloom's recent titles, when the self-proclaimed bardolosaurus finally dedicated a book to him fans could hope for a "book unlimited" on this Poem Unlimited. I was so saddened to find it more a "book uncontrolled." Picking up a copy in a book shop I found that I was able to read this title in a half-hour. During those few minutes, Bloom made few new connections for me. His reflections about the play scarcely presented a book of Revelation to cap off his career writing the New Testament of Shakespeare. And although this is probably a necessary title for those who want to read everything that has ever been thought about Hamlet, it will not be an easy read if you are not steeped in the play and the wealth of thought it has inspired over the centuries. (Do not make this an introductory gift to a novice you would like to beckon to the Church of Shakespeare.) No notes, no index, no guidance as to where to go to explore any idea or commentator here cited that intrigues you. Bloom owns that this little essay-dressed-out-as-book is just a postlude to his "Invention of the Human" (necessary because he got distracted by the Ur-Hamlet issue in writing the earlier book and did not write the Hamlet chapter he meant to include there). Yet, given its own volume, and given Hamlet's central place in Bloom's theology/bardology I expected some wealth of new insights - or comprehensive overview. Alas, alas. A final caveat. Heed the author's up-front warning: "Much of 'Hamlet: Poem Unlimited' devotes itself to meditative surmises upon Shakespeare's involvement in the mysteries of his final Hamlet."(p.2) Truly: more surmises than analyses or even explorations. Allow me to prophesy: most readers will be annoyed to pay for a book that is half quotations and filled out with *surmises*. Compulsive Shakespeare collector that I am, I will probably own a copy some day to examine more closely - out of my curiosity over how Shakespeare affects the professor's mind. But from my quick stand-up read in the store I've decided to wait till it's available for a couple bucks in a remainder bin.
Rating:
Summary: A "Poem Unlimited" gets short shrift
Review: When an author overflows his pages with hymns to his own religion, expect a limited audience ...the choir? ...a few others if the music soars to great heights? Bloom *does* acknowledge that "Shakespeare is my model and my mortal god..."(p. 2), so "Hamlet: Poem Unlimited" could be seen as his personal testament and hymnal. But as a robe-bearing member of the Bardology choir, I am dissappointed that the symphony of Shakespearean stimulations and provocations Bloom provided in "Invention of the Human" and in "Genius" is weakly orchestrated here. Hamlet is the St. Paul of your church, Professor. Does he not deserve a Missa Solemnis after feeding your soul for so many decades of life? (The volume is a mere 154 pages - and perhaps *half* are quotations of the play.) Because Hamlet so dominates most of Bloom's recent titles, when the self-proclaimed bardolosaurus finally dedicated a book to him fans could hope for a "book unlimited" on this Poem Unlimited. I was so saddened to find it more a "book uncontrolled." Picking up a copy in a book shop I found that I was able to read this title in a half-hour. During those few minutes, Bloom made few new connections for me. His reflections about the play scarcely presented a book of Revelation to cap off his career writing the New Testament of Shakespeare. And although this is probably a necessary title for those who want to read everything that has ever been thought about Hamlet, it will not be an easy read if you are not steeped in the play and the wealth of thought it has inspired over the centuries. (Do not make this an introductory gift to a novice you would like to beckon to the Church of Shakespeare.) No notes, no index, no guidance as to where to go to explore any idea or commentator here cited that intrigues you. Bloom owns that this little essay-dressed-out-as-book is just a postlude to his "Invention of the Human" (necessary because he got distracted by the Ur-Hamlet issue in writing the earlier book and did not write the Hamlet chapter he meant to include there). Yet, given its own volume, and given Hamlet's central place in Bloom's theology/bardology I expected some wealth of new insights - or comprehensive overview. Alas, alas. A final caveat. Heed the author's up-front warning: "Much of 'Hamlet: Poem Unlimited' devotes itself to meditative surmises upon Shakespeare's involvement in the mysteries of his final Hamlet."(p.2) Truly: more surmises than analyses or even explorations. Allow me to prophesy: most readers will be annoyed to pay for a book that is half quotations and filled out with *surmises*. Compulsive Shakespeare collector that I am, I will probably own a copy some day to examine more closely - out of my curiosity over how Shakespeare affects the professor's mind. But from my quick stand-up read in the store I've decided to wait till it's available for a couple bucks in a remainder bin.
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