is harold bloom in the room?[laughter] >> his comments and appreciation, everybody here is writing caucasian can you talk about the the cross diversity with race? and with a writer's life? [applause] >> that is a great question and i have been asking myself. living in new york i am used to walking down the street to see a variety of types. [laughter] here, you are not much. [laughter] in the british. it is a great question but it is not to criticize the organizers but it is a kind of absence that feels profound. i don't know. >> to write a book about the englishmen. >> it is much easier to cross that banned the gender line. to extol that says always be yourself. with every male or a single century. but it moves the human heart in a skiing all that they respond with the same sense of a tent city that coming at us similar circumstances i never felt there was a barrier there. >> interesting question. we've barely scratched the surface. >> trying to figure out how to frame this as a question. i was struck that the pa

i asked harold bloom one time what is the difference between stephen's relationship to walt whitman and johnny damon's relationship to mickey mantle in the new york yankees centerfield or mickey mantle's relationship to joe dimaggio in that centerfield? talk about anxieties of influence. he said there is no difference at all. the question is simply what is it about writers to think of these other professions. plumbers too probably thinking about joe blow on ninth street could really really make that sitting etc. or so-and-so couldn't. but i wanted to begin with my touchdown phyllis rose's observation. he was teasing me after the session. she said what is this? it's all guys. it's all guys talking about guys. and i thought this is a moment to repair it partly because we had to guys and dolls writing about other women won in the form of fiction and one in the form of biography. but phyllis opened the question with what is this thing about guy writers getting into the lives of other guy writers? i want to know first of all from the ladies perhaps what about ladies getting involved in ladie

so i don't 100% understand that harold bloom argument. at some level you are duking it out. >> i think he would say two things. one is that he uses this model and it's part of his response. to destroy each other in this way. we blew the vincennes away and etc. and it is a kind of sport, that kind of thing. but secondly, i mean -- such a huge subject. he has so much literature turning in his head and he remembers it all. and he does have a way of seeing it as a kind of web of connected borrowings and inspirations and i don't know. i think the whole anxiety question is overdone. i see it as a kind of connected world in which there is always a historical reference extension. i think part of the problem is that covers a multitude of sins he goes into his imagination and we, as writers, we talk about a critical essay. we are tearing him apart and so i think as to if then, we have to find a way that at its best to pay homage to the wider screen the time comes and we actually using words. but from an literary end logistical literary point of vie

they include shakespeare scholar steven greenblatt and harold bloom, also the director of the royal shakespeare company michael boyd. we then conclude our evening looking at hamlet. sir john ghoul good whose portrayals are considered some of the finest describe it as summing of the process of living, help us. with that, i would like to welcome you to the first episode in our charlie rose shakespeare series we call why shakespeare? i hope you enjoy the conversations. >> good night, good night. parting is such sweet sorrow. but i shall say good night so it be morrow. >> rose: when somebody says to you who was shakespeare wa, do you say? >> he was the greatest writer in the history of the english language. he was the person who made the theatre democratic. and that's what made him the greatest writer. because you look at shix spear, you look at him in context. and what he did was write for an audience and he had to simultaneously please illiterate ground lings, please cambridge educated intellectuals, please the aristocracy all at the same moment. because the two to compromise had brought together