Audiobook3 hours
Cleopatra: I Am Fire and Air
Written by Harold Bloom
Narrated by Simon Vance
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this audiobook
Cleopatra is one of the most famous women in history-and thanks to Shakespeare, one of the most intriguing personalities in literature. She is the lover of Marc Antony, defender of Egypt, and, perhaps most enduringly, a champion of life. Cleopatra is supremely vexing, tragic, and complex. She has fascinated readers and audiences for centuries and has been played by the greatest actresses of their time, from Elizabeth Taylor to Vivien Leigh to Janet Suzman to Judi Dench.
Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom writes about Cleopatra with wisdom, joy, exuberance, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character: Just as we encounter one Anna Karenina or Jay Gatsby when we are in high school and college and another when we are adults, Bloom explains his shifting understanding of Cleopatra over the course of his own lifetime. The book becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our own humanity.
Bloom is mesmerizing in the classroom, wrestling with the often tragic choices Shakespeare's characters make. With Cleopatra, he delivers exhilarating clarity and invites us to look at this character as a flawed human who might be living in our world. The result is an invaluable resource from our greatest literary critic.
Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom writes about Cleopatra with wisdom, joy, exuberance, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character: Just as we encounter one Anna Karenina or Jay Gatsby when we are in high school and college and another when we are adults, Bloom explains his shifting understanding of Cleopatra over the course of his own lifetime. The book becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our own humanity.
Bloom is mesmerizing in the classroom, wrestling with the often tragic choices Shakespeare's characters make. With Cleopatra, he delivers exhilarating clarity and invites us to look at this character as a flawed human who might be living in our world. The result is an invaluable resource from our greatest literary critic.
Author
Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom (Nueva York, 1930-Connecticut, 2019) fue el crítico literario más prestiogioso de nuestro tiempo. Ganador del McArthur Prie Fellow y el Premio Internacional de Catalunya, entre otros galardones, y miembro de la American Academy es autor de una veintena de libros y una de las personalidades más influyentes dentro del mundo de los estudios literarios.
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Titles in the series (5)
Falstaff: Give Me Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cleopatra: I Am Fire and Air Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lear: The Great Image of Authority Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Iago: The Strategies of Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Macbeth: A Dagger of the Mind Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
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Reviews for Cleopatra
Rating: 3.8499999899999997 out of 5 stars
4/5
10 ratings1 review
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Book received from NetGalley.I enjoyed this literary study about Cleopatra final pharaoh of the Ptolemy dynasty. While Harold Bloom focuses mainly on Shakespeare's play he does bring in a few other fictional accounts of her rule. I also liked how he mentioned the various actresses who portrayed her both on stage and screen. I have to respectfully disagree with his favorite though since I have always been fond of Elizabeth Taylor's portrayal of the royal. I think this would be a great reference for anyone who is currently studying Shakespeare's play.