Harold Bloom's four types

[dynamiteninja]

NY Times On Harold Bloom -

As for human nature, he suggests that all people -- not to mention all literary characters -- can be divided into four types: Hamlets, Falstaffs, Don Quixotes or Sancho Panzas.

Source

I wondered if these four types would possibly correlate with Keirsey's four types? I don't know the types of two of the characters, but I have seen Quizote typed as an INFP, and Hamlet is almost always typed as an Intuitive, sometimes an NT. I don't know Falstaff but isn't be the source of humour in the play(s) in which he appears, indicating the SP joker perhaps? And Panza as the SJ? Just a musing really, but it's interesting how we tend to like to classify people under one of four temperaments throughout human history.

 

[Mole]

NY Times On Harold Bloom -

Source

I wondered if these four types would possibly correlate with Keirsey's four types? I don't know the types of two of the characters, but I have seen Quizote typed as an INFP, and Hamlet is almost always typed as an Intuitive, sometimes an NT. I don't know Falstaff but isn't be the source of humour in the play(s) in which he appears, indicating the SP joker perhaps? And Panza as the SJ? Just a musing really, but it's interesting how we tend to like to classify people under one of four temperaments throughout human history.

Yes, Harold Bloom is a wonderful critic, particularly of Shakespeare.

And of course his four types are metaphoric - they are not meant to be taken literally.

So in that spirit and as an INFP, I can tell you I am definitely quixotic.

I have been tilting a windmills from the moment I arrived. And I can tell you they fight back - that huge sail comes around and tips me right of Rocinante, my noble horse. Fortunately Sancho will come to my aid and bind up my wounds and put my back on Rocinante ready for the next windmill - but there are so many and they just keep on turning and turning.

And of course we keep turning and returning to the four temperaments throughout history because they are convenient metaphors.

But this leaves open the interesting question - what is a metaphor?

 

[Thisica]

Yes, Harold Bloom is a wonderful critic, particularly of Shakespeare.

And of course his four types are metaphoric - they are not meant to be taken literally.

So in that spirit and as an INFP, I can tell you I am definitely quixotic.

I have been tilting a windmills from the moment I arrived. And I can tell you they fight back - that huge sail comes around and tips me right of Rocinante, my noble horse. Fortunately Sancho will come to my aid and bind up my wounds and put my back on Rocinante ready for the next windmill - but there are so many and they just keep on turning and turning.

And of course we keep turning and returning to the four temperaments throughout history because they are convenient metaphors.

But this leaves open the interesting question - what is a metaphor?

To me, a metaphor is a language device which allows us to have the illusion of knowledge, by describing the unfamiliar in terms of the familiar. Same goes for analogies.