The world has admired and respected many great writers, but only William Shakespeare has generated such varied and continuing interest. Shakespeare has had enormous influence on culture throughout the world. Each year hundreds of books and articles appear on Shakespearean subjects.
In his book, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, noted Shakespearean critic Harold Bloom set astir scholarly literary circles by dismissing the varied perspectives with which late 20th-century scholars view the works of William Shakespeare. Shakespearean scholars from the wide expanses of the literary universe reacted to Bloom’s writings with their own responses to the ideas that his best seller presented.
Dr. Robert Sawyer, ETSU assistant professor of English, and Dr. Christy Desmet of the University of Georgia, edited and published a collection of those fascinating and variegated responses in their book Harold Bloom’s Shakespeare.
“Harold Bloom is a well-known Shakespeare critic who has been an important voice for over a quarter of a century,” said Sawyer, co-editor of the book. “Re-cently, however, he has become very conservative in his views on the way the next generation of scholars are interpreting the works of William Shakespeare.”
Sawyer explained that today’s younger scholars are in no way diminishing the status of Shakespeare through their interpretations; they are simply “trying to keep Shakespeare in the cultural conversation.”
In this way, the plays and poems that Shakespeare wrote centuries ago retain an fresh, exciting quality just as if they had been written this past decade.
“Dr. Desmet and I organized a seminar at the 2000 meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America to obtain responses to Bloom’s ciriticisms,” Sawyer said.
At the worldwide gathering of critics and teachers of Shakepeare, the book’s editiors recieved a wide range of contribtions for the project from well-known Shakespearean critics and younger scholars from within the field.
As the book’s publisher says, the collection of 18 essays “provide a fresh look at literary history” from scholars “from a variety of theoretical and political positions.”
So long as people are reading the plays and poems of William Shakespeare there will always be praise and criticism about the content of his work.

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