Bardolatry - Harold Bloom

Harold Bloom

The critic Harold Bloom revived bardolatry in his 1998 book Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, in which Bloom provides an analysis of each of Shakespeare's thirty-eight plays, "twenty-four of which are masterpieces." Written as a companion to the general reader and theatergoer, Bloom declares that bardolatry "ought to be even more a secular religion than it already is." He even contends in the work, in a deliberately provocative overstatement, that Shakespeare "invented" humanity, in that he prescribed the now-common practice of "overhearing" ourselves, which drives our own internal psychological development. In addition, he embraces the notion of the true reality of the characters of Shakespeare, regarding them as "real people" in the sense that they have altered the consciousness and modes of perception of not only readers, but most people in any western literate culture.

Some view Bloom's analysis as ahistorical or merely evaluatory, and as with much of his work, his readings have proven controversial in an era of historically and theoretically grounded literary criticism that hesitates to unequivocally ascribe "greatness" or "genius" to any given author or work. Nonetheless Bloom remains one of the most commonly cited modern commentators on Shakespeare's work in America.