Fallen Angels

"In this brief volume, celebrated critic Harold Bloom explores the universal fascination with angels. Drawing on his remarkable intimacy with the "long literary tradition [that] extends from ancient Persia through Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the various American religions," Bloom focuses in particular on the metaphoric power of angels. Examining sources that range from Zoroastrian texts, the Bible, and Kabbalah to Hamlet, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Tony Kushner's Angels in America, Bloom concludes that we are all fallen angels. "The center of any discussion of fallen angels has to be Adam," Bloom writes, "who seems to me a far greater fallen angel than Satan." Ultimately, for Bloom, "fallenness" is a defining characteristic of the human condition: the recognition of our own mortality. That angels express this is not surprising. "Otherness is the essence of the angels," he writes; "but then it is our essence also." Bloom's text is adorned with original watercolors, line drawings, and illuminated letters by distinguished artist Mark Podwal."--BOOK JACKET.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.