Stendhal's the Red and the Black

by Harold Bloom (Editor)

A collection of critical essays on Stendhal's novel "The Red and the Black" arranged in chronological order of publication.

138 pages, Library Binding

First published December 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

[Peter Allum]

I am reading Stendhal from a non-academic perspective and bought this collection to help get the most out of the Red and the Black. My rating surely undervalues the collective scholarship behind this series of essays, published between 1965 and 1984. Still, it’s unlikely anyone will rely on this review and rating when considering a purchase!

For my own records, a few thoughts on the essays:

Girard: a discussion of the political context of the nobility and bourgeoisie in the decades following the revolution.

Miller: explores the concept of “open-endedness”.

Brooks: an interesting discussion of issues of paternity in the Red and the Black—just as it evidently is a common theme in C19th literature.

Jefferson: perspectives on how different readerships are addressed by Stendhal: sophisticated Parisians, less-educated provincial readers, and readers in future generations.

Mauldon: explores how the epistolary novelistic tradition (novels based on exchanges of letters) influences the Red and the Black.

Mossman: discusses how the novel can be read as referential to other texts, including those that bear on the name assigned to Julien.

Overall, I welcomed the ideas even though literary analysis is not a world in which I’d want to spend my life!

Many of the quotations are in the original French, which I understood at a general level but not well enough to follow the detailed analysis.