The leitmotif of Shakespeare's ""invention of the human,"" i.e., of the changeable, individual human character, is a useful through-line to the essays but never highjacks them as Bloom's critical tropes sometimes do. The ratio of screed to reading is blessedly low although Bloom has kept his common touch, one feels that he has ceased the play to the peanut gallery that made The Western Canon a cause c l bre.
The result is a series of brilliant, persuasive, highly idiosyncratic readings punctuated by attacks on current Shakespeare criticism and performance. In some ways the crowning achievement of the controversial Yale critic's career (which has produced The Anxiety of Influence The Book of J etc.), this sweeping monograph devotes an essay to each of the plays, emphasizing their originality and their influence on subsequent literature, feeling and thought.
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