Harold Bloom viewed Prince Hamlet as the pinnacle of Western literature, possessing a "terrifying inwardness" and the most profound authorial consciousness ever written. Hamlet is a complex, paralyzed intellectual torn between cosmic drama and a crude revenge plot, ultimately changing more through his own soliloquies than external actions. One of 51 titles in the "Major Literary Characters" series which collate criticism from various sources, and which seek to place the analysis of characters back at the centre of literary study. This title in the ancient world to the 17th century section focuses on Shakespeare's Hamlet.