Rudyard Kipling

Bloom's Modern Critical Views

by Harold Bloom (Editor), Michael Gray Baughan (Contributing Editor)

-- Brings together the best criticism on the most widely read poets, novelists, and playwrights -- Presents complex critical portraits of the most influential writers in the English-speaking world -- from the English medievalists to contemporary writers

Hardcover

First published February 1, 1988

About the author

Harold Bloom was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world." After publishing his first book in 1959, Bloom wrote more than 50 books, including over 40 books of literary criticism, several books discussing religion, and one novel. He edited hundreds of anthologies concerning numerous literary and philosophical figures for the Chelsea House publishing firm. Bloom's books have been translated into more than 40 languages. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1995.
Bloom was a defender of the traditional Western canon at a time when literature departments were focusing on what he derided as the "school of resentment" (multiculturalists, feminists, Marxists, and others). He was educated at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, and Cornell University.

Reviews

[m · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book.
68,000 words

The chapters aren't numbered but here's its contents:

1 Editor’s Note (290 words) — good

2 Introduction (3000 words) — very good
by Harold Bloom

3 On Preparing to Read Kipling (6900 words) — very good
by Randall Jarrell

4 Kim and the Stories (5400 words) — good
by Angus Wilson

5 The Pleasures of Kim (4700 words) — great essay
by Irving Howe

6 A Puritan’s Empire: The Case of Kipling (4500 words) — interesting negative take
by Donald Davie

7 Kipling the Nightwalker
by Zohreh T. Sullivan

8 Kipling’s Jest (11,200 words) — good but taxing
by David Bromwich

9 Silence and Survival in Kipling’s Art and Life
by Elliot L. Gilbert

10 Kipling in the Light of Failure
by Robert L. Caserio