Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

  • Lear

  • The Great Image of Authority
  • By: Harold Bloom
  • Narrated by: Simon Vance
  • Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (9 ratings)

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Lear

By: Harold Bloom
Narrated by: Simon Vance
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £10.99

Buy Now for £10.99

Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

King Lear is perhaps the most poignant character in literature. The aged, abused monarch is at once the consummate figure of authority and the classic example of the fall from majesty. He is widely agreed to be William Shakespeare's most moving, tragic hero.

Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom writes about Lear with wisdom, joy, exuberance, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character: Just as we encounter one Emma Bovary or Hamlet when we are 17 and another when we are 40, Bloom writes about his shifting understanding - over the course of his own lifetime - of Lear, so that this audiobook also explores an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our humanity.

Bloom is mesmerizing in the classroom, wrestling with the often tragic choices Shakespeare's characters make. He delivers that kind of exhilarating intimacy, pathos, and clarity in Lear.
©2018 Harold Bloom (P)2019 HighBridge Company
Classics Literary History & Criticism Shakespeare
Show More Show Less
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Iago cover art
Cleopatra: I Am Fire and Air cover art
Falstaff cover art
Macbeth: A Dagger of the Mind cover art
Living with Shakespeare cover art
Possessed by Memory cover art
Shakespeare, Our Contemporary cover art
Antony & Cleopatra cover art
Hamlet: The Arkangel Shakespeare cover art
King John: The Arkangel Shakespeare cover art
Richard III cover art
Mad About Shakespeare cover art
The Christopher Marlowe BBC Radio Drama Collection cover art
King Lear cover art
Timon of Athens cover art
Troilus and Cressida cover art

What listeners say about Lear

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Audible.co.uk reviews

Amazon reviews
Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Lex

Not a huge amount of insight

I was expecting more depth from Harold Bloom, having read him before on other works.

Report this

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!