In this practical guide to literary appreciation, Harold Bloom moves chapter by chapter through short stories, poems, novels, and plays, showing readers how close, patient rereading rewards attention. He takes up writers from Chekhov, Hemingway, and Flannery O'Connor to Shakespeare, Austen, Whitman, and Dickinson, building a case for particular works as models of what literature can do. Equal parts personal canon and instruction manual, the book argues that reading well is a discipline that deepens the self as much as it deepens understanding of the text.
Books mentioned in How to Read and Why (128)
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde: “Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western World”
The Playboy of the Western World by J. M. Synge: “George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western World, and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot.”
La Belle Dame sans Merci by John Keats: “John Keats 1 34 "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" 1 34 Summary Observations”
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy: “Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, which surely O'Connor would have admired had she survived to read it.”
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville: “Herman Melville's Moby-Dick is the indisputable ancestor of the six modern American novels I shall consider in this chapter”
Ulysses by Alfred Tennyson: “Tennyson's Ulysses, after a lifetime of struggle with the sea god, was nor likely to yteld to any divinity.”
King Lear by William Shakespeare: “takes its title from a song fragment sung by Edgar in Shakespeare's King Lear, act 3, as scene 4 closes”
Hamlet by William Shakespeare: “from Shakespeare's Hamlet and Milton's Satan on through Romanticism, shapes both "Ulysses" and "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came."”
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann: “Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain was widely received as a work of modern fiction almost comparable to Joyce's Ulysses and Proust's In Search of Lost Time.”
Henry IV, Part 1 by William Shakespeare: “Sir John Falstaff, the star turn in Shakespeare's Henry IV plays, and Shakespeare's only cre ation who competes with Hamlet in popularity (Bloom refers collectively to both 'Henry IV' plays; canonicalized here to Part 1, where Falstaff is most prominent)”
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino: “Calvina's Invisible Cities come in eleven groupings, scattered rather than bunched: cities and-memory, desire, signs, eyes, names, the dead, the sky”
Clarissa by Samuel Richardson: “its great monuments extend from Samuel Richardson's Clarissa through Marcel Proust's In Search ofLost Time.”
Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare: “Like Hamlet, Shakespeare's Sonnets are a perpetual refreshment in the pleasures of change in meaning, each time we reread.”
Dubliners by James Joyce: “as was Joyce's Dubliners, though Joyce denied he had read Chekhov.”
Underworld by Don DeLillo: “the sublime maelstrom of Don DeLillo's Underworld, somehow reach us how to live, what to do?”
A Shropshire Lad by A. E. Housman: “Housman's A Shropshire Lad ( 1 896).”
Adonais by Percy Bysshe Shelley: “are forever linked by Shelley's Adonais, his elegy for Keats.”
In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust: “comparable to Joyce's Ulysses and Proust's In Search of Lost Time.”
Lincoln by Gore Vidal: “I like historical novels, from Sir Walter Scott's Redgauntlet through Gore Vidal's Lincoln”
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw: “George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western World”
Redgauntlet by Walter Scott: “I like historical novels, from Sir Walter Scott's Redgauntlet through Gore Vidal's Lincoln”
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes: “The reader, who learns to love Don Quixote, and Sancho Panza, will get to know better who she is, because of them.”
Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen: “Henrik Ibsen's tragicomedy, Hedda Gabler; Oscar Wilde's comedy, The Importance of Being Earnest.”
The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway: “as in the famous, quasi-autobiographical "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," its author's favorite.”
Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway: “Ernest Hemingway "Hills Like White Elephants" "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen" "The Snows of Kilimanjaro"”
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: “what do Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Mansfield Park, and Persua sion wish to reform?”
Shadows by D. H. Lawrence: “Lawrence's majestic "Shadows," where the middle-aged poet, dying of tuberculosis like the young Keats, also finds the courage for a new vision”
In Memoriam by Alfred Tennyson: “Much of Tennyson's finest poetry comprises elegies for Hallam, including "In Memoriam" and the "Marte d'Anhur."”
Man and the Echo by W. B. Yeats: “wrote the powerful "The Man and the Echo," as one of his death poems.”
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway: “Hemingway himself did that in "The Old Man and the Sea," but not in the masterful "The Snows of Kilimanjaro."”
The Wandering Jew: “Ar rhe root of Coleridge's poem is rhe popular ballad "The Wandering Jew," bur rhe Ancient Mariner has more in common wirh Franz Kafka's characters”
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens: “Pip in Great Expectations, David Copperfield in his book, and Esther Summerson in Bleak House”
Sketches from a Hunter's Album by Ivan Turgenev: “Ivan Turgenev Frank O'Connor set Turgenev's Sketches from a Hunter's Album ( 1 852) over any other single volume of short stories.”
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer: “Shakespeare had been rereading Chaucer's "The Knight's Tale" from The Tales ofCanterbury, so as to borrow freely from Chaucer for his plot.”
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner: “The first is constituted by William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts, Thomas Pyn chon's The Crying of Lot 49, and Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.”
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare: “may also be the best British comedy since Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, sur passing the rival works that I have listed.”
Experience by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “She had read Emerson's essay "Experience," a culmination much in the way "Of Experience" was for his master Montaigne”
Inferno by Dante Alighieri: “from Homer's Odyssey through Dame's Inferno on to Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida”
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway: “Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises begins with the ironical observation that "Robert Cohn was once mid dleweight boxing champion of Princeton."”
Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare: “from Homer's Odyssey through Dame's Inferno on to Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida”
Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges: “Borges's Collected Fictions insist always upon their self-conscious status as artifices, unlike Chekhov's impressionistic glances at the truths of our existence.”
Evelina by Fanny Burney: “Sanmel Richardson's marvelous Clarissa and his Sir Charles Grandison; Fanny Burney's Evelina.”
The Odyssey by Homer: “from Homer's Odyssey through Dame's Inferno on to Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida”
Patience by W. S. Gilbert: “Wilde had been satirized as Bun thorne, the "aesthetic sham" of Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience.”
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: “He is reminiscent of Swift's Lemuel Gulliver and Defoe's Robinson Crusoe; like them, the Mariner seems an accurate observer”
She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith: “Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer, Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The School for Scandal”
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: “Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby begins with Nick Carraway's father telling him: "Just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had,"”
The Princess Casamassima by Henry James: “rather like the London underground movement of Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent and Henry James's The Princess Casamassima”
The School for Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan: “Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The School for Scandal, were joined in later rimes by Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest”
The Wings of the Dove by Henry James: “be it Dame's Divine Comedy or Henry James's The Wings ofthe Dove”
The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: “I first fell in love (if I remember accurately) not with an actual girl but with Marty South in Thomas Hardy's The Woodlanders”
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison: “his pride at having composed Invisible Man was the largest single factor in his refusal to publish a second novel during his lifetime.”
Tom O'Bedlam: “Dickinson, Bronte, Popular Ballads, and "Tom O'Bedlam"”
Paradise Lost by John Milton: “I wish I had more space for Paradise Lost, but I have sketched how and why Milton's Satan needs to be read, and reread.”
Bezhin Meadow by Ivan Turgenev: “Introduction Ivan Turgenev " Bezhin Lea"”
The Kiss by Anton Chekhov: “Anton Chekhov "The Kiss" "The Student" "The Lady with the Dog"”
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens: “To understand Pip in all his shadings is to have read Great Expectations well, and is a good start on how to read a novel.”
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky: “Crime and Punishment remains the best of all murder stories, a century and a third after its publication.”
The Unquiet Grave by Cyril Connolly: “I analyze here my rwo favorite ballads, "Sir Patrick Spence" and "The Unquiet Grave," before turning to the greatest anonymous poem in the lan guage”
The Student by Anton Chekhov: “Anton Chekhov "The Kiss" "The Student" "The Lady with the Dog"”
A View of the Woods by Flannery O'Connor: “"A View of the Woods" is a sublimely ugly tale, featuring the seventy-nine-year-old Mr.”
Because That You Are Going by Emily Dickinson: “Emily Dickinson 94 Poem 1260, "Because That You Are Going" 95”
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert: “The influence of Cervantes is intense upon Stendhal and Flaubert, whose Madame Bovary is "the female Quixote."”
The Red and the Black by Stendhal: “Julien Sorel, in The Red and the Black, pursues his suicidal and more or less heroic erotic career as a Napoleonic clone”
Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll: “could not in genre be com pared to Patience, Iolanthe, and Through the Looking-Glass, and even to the Nonsense Books of Edward Lear.”
Death and the Compass by Jorge Luis Borges: “mine includes "Tlon, Ugbar, Orb is Tertius," "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote, " "Death and the Compass, "”
How Should One Read a Book? by Virginia Woolf: “Virginia Woolf, in "How Should One Read a Book?"-the final brief essay in her Second Common Reader charmingly warns”
In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka: “must have found in Pip (and other Dickens protagonists) another spur to his terrifying for mula for the tale "In the Penal Colony,"”
Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “Coleridge's person from Porlock {who supposedly interrupted the composition of "Kubla Khan") .”
Light in August by William Faulkner: “Faulkner, who in his grand early phase had created The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom!”
Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare: “there is a deeper Shakespeareanism in seeing the state's money as being incest; Measure for Measure is close by.”
Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley: “in the mode of Shelley's "trum pet of a prophecy" in the closing lines of his "Ode to the West Wind"”
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison: “I continue to prefer Song of Solomon ( 1 977) as her most permanent achievement, to date.”
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky: “Dosto evsky's heroic quest to write eternal fictions, culminating in The Brothers Karamazov.”
The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells: “The Invisible Man, like Jonah, is always in repression, to which Freud assigned the metaphor of fleeing.”
The Nose by Nikolai Gogol: “it is not the best ofGogol, which may be "Old-World Landowners" or the insane "The Nose," which begins when a barber, at breakfast, dis covers a customer's nose”
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “Coleridge's uncanny The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and by Shelley and Keats at their most haunting.”
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner: “had created The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom!”
The South by Jorge Luis Borges: “mine includes "Tlon, Ugbar, Orb is Tertius," "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote, " "Death and the Compass, " "The South,"”
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: “the handful of enduring poems by Emily Bronte, the seer of Wuthering Heights”
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: “Tolstoy (who loved her) is not Anna Karenina, and Philip Roth is not "Philip Roth"”
Beloved by Toni Morrison: “Toni Morrison, born in 1 93 1 , is best known for her lyrical fantasy novel Beloved ( 1 987)”
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: “what do Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Mansfield Park, and Persua sion wish to reform?”
Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis: “Lewis, revered by many American Fundamen ralists as the author of the dogmatic tract Mere Christianity”
New Atlantis by Francis Bacon: “Why has Marco not spoken of New Atlantis, Utopia, the City of the Sun, New Har mony, and all the other cities of redemption?”
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens: “it has not joined Oliver Twist as popular mythology, and Dickens himself preferred Copperfield”
On the Road by Jack Kerouac: “The Magic Mountain cannot be read sandwiched in between On the Road and some chunk of cyberpunk.”
Parker's Back by Flannery O'Connor: “That comes in such later work as "A View of the Woods" and "Parker's Back," and in her second novel, The Violent Bear It Away.”
Sir Charles Grandison by Samuel Richardson: “Sanmel Richardson's marvelous Clarissa and his Sir Charles Grandison; Fanny Burney's Evelina.”
The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov: “a practice followed also in Chekhov's finest plays, Three Sis ters and The Cherry Orchard.”
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri: “as close as anyone has come ro persuading us rhar rhis is how Dame would sound had rhe poet of The Divine Comedy composed in English.”
The Knight's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer: “Shakespeare had been rereading Chaucer's "The Knight's Tale" from The Tales ofCanterbury”
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: “Never much of a novel reader, Emerson read The Scarlet Letter but under esteemed it”
Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West: “she preferred Faulkner's As I Lay Dying and Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts to all other works of modern American fiction”
Middlemarch by George Eliot: “George Eliot was one of the finest of novelists, and Middlemarch (her masterpiece) abounds in fascinating moral judgments.”
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann: “the grand monument of which remains the novella Death in Venice.”
Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky: “Svidrigailov's freedom, like Stavrogin's in The Devils, is 1 72 How TO READ AND WHY absolute, and also is absolutely terrifying.”
The Messianic Idea in Judaism by Gershom Scholem: “the great essay "Redemption Through Sin" in Gershom Scholem's The Messianic Idea in judaism.”
The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens: “I used to reread Dickens's The Pick wick Papers twice a year, wearing out several copies in the process.”
Urn Burial by Thomas Browne: “slowly revising a baroque translation of Sir Thomas Browne's Urne Burial!, of which my own favorite sentence remains "Life is a pure flame"”
Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “the genre of the German Bildungsroman, of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain and Goethe's Wilhelm Meister.”
Sir Patrick Spence: “I analyze here my rwo favorite ballads, "Sir Patrick Spence" and "The Unquiet Grave"”
The Horla by Guy de Maupassant: “in a horror story like "The Horla," both of which I shall consider here.”
The Vane Sisters by Vladimir Nabokov: “I pass on to a superb story by Vladimir Nabokov, "The Vane Sis ters," because the transition refreshes me”
The Sick Rose by William Blake: “William Blake 71 "The Sick Rose" 71 Walter Savage Landor 72”
The Eagle by Alfred Tennyson: “Alfred Lord Tennyson 73 "The Eagle" 73 "Ulysses" 74”
A Sea Change by Ernest Hemingway: “"Hills Like White Elephants" "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen" "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" "A Sea Change"”
Operation Shylock by Philip Roth: “Philip Roth is not "Philip Roth" (either of them!) in Operation Shylock.”
Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “the major instance of the American replacement of dramatic mono logue by the epic of Self-Reliance, to employ Emerson's term (may denote either the essay title or Bloom's use of it as Emerson's coined term; included as a specific named work)”
Of Experience by Michel de Montaigne: “a culmination much in the way "Of Experience" was for his master Montaigne”
A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal by William Wordsworth: “William Wordsworth 120 "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal" 1 21”
Kasyan from the Beautiful Lands by Ivan Turgenev: “SHORT STORIES "Kasyan from the Beautiful Lands" Anton Chekhov "The Kiss" (title reconstructed from the table-of-contents fragment 'Beautiful Lands'; author inferred from its position preceding Chekhov's stories in the same TOC list)”
Of Mere Being by Wallace Stevens: “the reader may remember the death image in Stevens's much earlier poem "Sun day Morning," written forry years before "Of Mere Being"”
The Decay of Lying by Oscar Wilde: “wonderful as two of his critical essays are: "The Soul of Man under Socialism" and the dialogue "The Decay of Lying."”
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge Luis Borges: “"Tlon, Ugbar, Orbis Tertius" begins with a disarming sentence (in Andrew Hurley's eloquent translation): "I owe the discovery of Ugbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia."”
At Sea by Anton Chekhov: “Prince Hamlet becomes the ship in which Chekhov sails (quire literally in "At Sea," the first story published under Chekhov's own name).”
God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen by Ernest Hemingway: “"Hills Like White Elephants" "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen" "The Snows of Kilimanjaro"”
Mad Song by William Blake: “nothing else in the genre compares to it, not even the "Mad Song" of William Blake.”
Old-World Landowners by Nikolai Gogol: “it is not the best ofGogol, which may be "Old-World Landowners" or the insane "The Nose"”
On His Seventy-fifth Birthday by Walter Savage Landor: “Walter Savage Landor 72 "On His Seventy-fifth Birthday" 72 Alfred Lord Tennyson 73”
Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen: “Shakespeare pervades Ibsen, whether in the tragedy of Brand, the heroic com edy of Peer Gynt”
Redemption Through Sin by Gershom Scholem: “the great essay "Redemption Through Sin" in Gershom Scholem's The Messianic Idea in judaism.”
The Broken Tower by Hart Crane: “Repeated rereading of "The Broken Tower" or the "Proem: To Brooklyn Bridge" will give you the poem forever.”