Shakespeare

Literary critic Harold Bloom argues that Shakespeare did not merely depict human nature but invented it: before him there was characterization, afterward there were characters, individuals capable of change. Bloom works through all 38 plays, 24 of which he rates of the highest quality, and holds that Shakespeare taught people to overhear themselves, a habit that drives change. Falstaff and Hamlet, standing for self-satisfaction and self-loathing, are the twin pillars of the theory, joined by Iago and Cleopatra as the characters he finds most inexhaustible. Written as a companion for general readers and theatergoers, the 1998 study also attacks what Bloom calls the school of resentment in academic criticism.

It appears in a What CEOs are reading feature as a pick of China Investment Corporation managing director Winston Ma.