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The Western Canon

3.84 of 5 stars 3.84 · rating details · 1,139 ratings · 89 reviews

Harold Bloom explores our Western literary tradition by concentrating on the works of twenty-six authors central to the Canon. He argues against ideology in literary criticism; he laments the loss of intellectual and aesthetic standards; he deplores multiculturalism, Marxism, feminism, neoconservatism, Afrocentrism, and the New Historicism. Insisting instead upon "the auto...more

Hardcover, 578 pages

Published August 31st 1994 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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Apr 02, 2012 Paul marked it as assorted-rants-about-stuff · review of another edition

GREAT LESSER KNOWN BOOKS BY WELL KNOWN AUTHORS

I think these are probably not in Mr Bloom's book, and I want to know why!

1. Ray Bradbury’s history of British sport Something Wicket This Way Comes
2. Charles Dickens novel on the ravages caused by tuberculosis, Great Expectorations
3. Dostoievski’s biography of George Bush, The Idiot (I prefer that one to Raymond Chandler’s The Big Creep)
4. Mary Shelley on the current crisis in capitalism Investment Bankenstein
5. Dickens again on the same topic Our M...more

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Feb 26, 2008 Darren rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"The only spirit in 'Ulysses' is Shakespeare."
"In conversation with John Dryden, [Milton] once confessed rather too readily that Spenser was his 'Great Original,' a remark that I have come to understand as a defense against Shakespeare."
"Oedipus, I suggest, was hauled in by Freud and grafted onto Hamlet largely in order to cover up an obligation to Shakespeare."
"Except for Shakespeare, Chaucer is foremost among writers in the English language."
'Knowing more English would not have enlightened Tol...more "The only spirit in 'Ulysses' is Shakespeare."
"In conversation with John Dryden, [Milton] once confessed rather too readily that Spenser was his 'Great Original,' a remark that I have come to understand as a defense against Shakespeare."
"Oedipus, I suggest, was hauled in by Freud and grafted onto Hamlet largely in order to cover up an obligation to Shakespeare."
"Except for Shakespeare, Chaucer is foremost among writers in the English language."
'Knowing more English would not have enlightened Tolstoy; his fury at Shakespeare was defensive, though presumably he was unaware of it.'

Harold Bloom represents everything that is wrong with everything I usually tend to hold dear - intelligence, literature, higher education, lofty pretension, the belief that writing about artwork can be just as important as the artwork itself, the notion that the critic is something akin to a holy man. He is the parasite suckling the sweet nectar of the gods out of the wide expanse of literature. We are all very, very lucky that he has never deigned to notice any but the most obvious modern authors (Pynchon, Roth, Delillo, and McCarthy.)

Of course, that would involve writing about people who are alive and could defend themselves, and Bloom has the courage of a dozen Grail knights when it comes to making the most far-spanning assumptions about very great, very intelligent, very talented, very dead men. I'm not quite sure how it is that Bloom has become so highly regarded in the study of literature, because he basically has one weapon in his arsenal which he pulls out at nearly every juncture. The man writes "Shakespeare" often enough to demand a drinking game. In the very first paragraph of his essay on Milton, he writes "Shakespeare" 9 times. This is a rare moment of restraint for Bloom.

Okay, okay, I am not simple. I understand that Bloom has chosen to frame his western canon through the prism of Shakespeare. In this way, Bloom's writing is very strikingly similar to the writing of one of my favorite non-fiction novelists, David Thomson, who, in "The Whole Equation," views the history of Hollywood through the double lens of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Last Tycoon" and Robert Towne's "Chinatown." The difference is that Thomson is focusing on their treatment of Los Angeles, whereas Bloom is focusing on how Shakespeare invented literature, awareness, and humanity (one of his books is "Shakespeare: the Invention of the Human").

There is another important difference between Thomson and Bloom: Thomson would have been a great novelist if he weren't so obsessed with the movies (he says as much, or comes close to saying that, very often in his writing); Bloom would have been a second-rate used car salesman if someone, somewhere, hadn't given him the awful idea that he should write about writing.

I realize Bloom knows more about literature than practically anyone on the face of the earth. This does not hide the fact that he understands literature less than your average ten-year-old and, moreover, that he is so unremittingly insistent upon some unchanging interpretation of literature, and so humorless in his consideration of writers and their writing, that his continued presence in the literary world is an insult to every single author he claims to praise in the book, Will Shakespeare included.

Over and over again, like a king besieged by madness in an empty castle, he rails against the numerous people and forces who are arrayed against him - feminists, marxists, culturists (he references African-American academics specifically and all non-white academics generally.) This at first seems peppy and un-PC, then lightly racist and sexist, before it settles in that Bloom simply has very little interest in most non-Caucasian, non-male, non-Bloom concepts.

And there's the Shakespeare. You could argue (Bloom doesn't, but strongly implies to the point of embarrassment) that Shakespeare's influence has trickled down through the ages and social strata, so that an illiterate Sudanese orphan or a third-generation Turkish "guest worker" immigrant in Berlin or Paris Hilton all live and breathe in his influence, just as you can argue that a butterfly in Brazil flaps a hurricane into existence on the other side of the world or that, when no one is around, trees that fall in forests hum "Stairway to Heaven" on their way down. Because you can't really prove anything, you can say everything. David Thomson gets away with this kind of thing because he is witty, because he carries himself like a fellow traveler, and because he has a certain British self-deflation which gives his most madcap suggestions a twinkle - as when, in his biography of Orson Welles, he casually notes that young Orson was racing through local Irish lassies in a small province just about nine months before Peter O'Toole was born.

Above all, David Thomson (and I am talking about him so much only because there is so little to say about Bloom) is daring, and perhaps self-loathing, enough to question whether or not his primary influence - the filmic art - is actually rather silly, if not ruinous. Bloom, conversely, declares, "We owe to Shakespeare not only our representation of cognition but much of our capacity for cognition." Bloom is openly declaring literature as religion, Shakespeare as God (and the other way around, too) - which would place him, humbly, as the great outspoken prophet of a debased age - a Daniel in Babylon.

Too bad the tigers would just spit him back out.(less)

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Mar 19, 2008 Dan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: literary folks

I finally had to read Bloom because he seems to irritate so many people. He is the torchbearer of literary aesthetics, or rather an aesthetic literary canon. He repeatedly denigrates and teases the contemporary schools of thought: feminism, new historicism, deconstructionism, etc. As such, mention of this book most frequently invokes a scoff, usually by someone who hasn’t read it. I urge you to. Bloom has read with extraordinary breadth and depth and seems to remember it all. I cannot vouch for...more

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Apr 28, 2007 Gopi rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Reading literary criticism is like having a tour-guide to a book. And having someone passionate about the subject makes it that much more enjoyable. Prof. Bloom is an unabashed lover of literature with none of the disdain for "dead white male Europeans" that many academics have (he calls them the "school of resentment"). His passion for Western literature is so fierce that it is inspiring.

In the book, he walks us through the ages of literary history, pointing out great authors and great works. H...more

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Jun 01, 2013 Jeremy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: theory, non-fiction, pre-goodreads

I read this while doing Literary Studies in university. Bloom's work was introduced to us piecemeal as a foil, a series of quotes here and there to wind up into a tight straw-man and then knock down. And burn.

I read further and discovered there was much more to him, the last genuine Literary Critic.

It was quite a few years back, so I will have to reread at some stage to provide a proper review, but some of the commentary on here, so full of facile assumptions and Resentment...

...required some so...more

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Jan 19, 2008 Tim rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is half brilliant, a quarter nonsense, and a quarter defensible but repetitive and angry venting at deconstructionists, New Historicists, neo-Marxists, queer theorists, feminists, etc. Okay, art should be judged on its esthetic and conceptual merits and not as it accords with someone’s political or social agenda. Fair enough, and enough said already, Harold. He idolizes Shakespeare, and makes an almost convincing case for us to do the same. He’s incredibly well-read and knowledgeable,...more

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Sep 18, 2011 Ariane rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read a lot of Bloom's criticism of Shakespeare, and I seemed to remember finding him helpful. I wonder if it's because I wasn't doing the reading, because this time around reading him makes me tired and even angry. He spends a lot of time making value judgments of writers in comparison to other writers, even when he admits these writers were attempting/addressing different things. Although he proves that he reads and thinks about the reading, I don't know if he actually illuminates anything fo...more

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Oct 26, 2012 Josh rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, non-fiction

This has basically been my literary bible for the past year or two. I'm not finished, but then I don't think I ever will be. It's introduced to to more good books than I can count and I'm sure it will continue to do so.

Bloom gets a lot of bad rap for being 'sexist' and 'racist', but I think those claims are dubious at best. He's just a man who thinks a book is more important than its author. If he values the dead-white-European-male, it's because dead-white-European-males were the best authors...more

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Aug 30, 2012 ماهر Battuti rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A very important book by the distinguished contemporary American critic H. Bloom. He discusses in this book the books and titles that contributed in making the western thought, culture, conscience...etc, which he gathers in the word "Canon". He added in an appendix his choices of those titles, and divided them, for convenience, in epochs or times, beginning with " The Theocratic age" in which he comprises The Bible, The Qur'an, Gilgamesh, The Book of the Dead,Arabian Nights, among many titles. T...more

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Nov 28, 2011 Daisyjess rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-about-literature, extra-reading-1st-year, non-fiction, literary-criticism

The Western Canon reminded me why literature matters. I've been struggling with the intense workload of an English degree and Bloom's book was the inspiration I needed to get back to enjoying the work.

Bloom's knowledge of Western writing is vast and his writing conveys the extent to which he loves literature. Returning throughout the book to the aesthetic nature of art and forming web upon web of reasoning around Shakespeare as the centre of the canon, Bloom's expertise as a critic is inspiring...more

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Sep 08, 2011 Wendell rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Harold Bloom is one of those astonishing people who seem to have read everything about everything and remembered it all. Unfortunately, his arrogance matches his knowledge, and that makes his book tendentious in many places. But it is an excellent series of essays about 26 major writers from Dante to Samuel Beckett, attempting to explain what makes each of them so unique and so important.
This book is one of Bloom's contributions to the great debate about whether there are books that one HAS to k...more Harold Bloom is one of those astonishing people who seem to have read everything about everything and remembered it all. Unfortunately, his arrogance matches his knowledge, and that makes his book tendentious in many places. But it is an excellent series of essays about 26 major writers from Dante to Samuel Beckett, attempting to explain what makes each of them so unique and so important.
This book is one of Bloom's contributions to the great debate about whether there are books that one HAS to know in order to be "cultured," or whether the definition of culture is relative or even arbitrary. Obviously, Bloom comes down on the side of a permanent canon of "great books" and composes an elegy on the thought that the canon is in danger of being lost/forgotten.
At the end of his book, Bloom provides a list of canonical works. Anyone can pick the list apart, both for items included, such as all of the works of Samuel Johnson, and for items omitted [it’s a Western Canon, so there is no hint of the literatures of Asia]. In general, it’s a useful checklist if you want to know what “great” works of Western literature you’re missing. I’ve been using it as a reading list for the past couple of years.
The list is of literature, not philosophy [although he does include the Pre-Socratics, Plato, a bit of Aristotle, Plutarch (!), Lucretius, one essay of Cicero, Rousseau and Nietzsche] or history [except Herodotus, Thucydides, Froissart and Gibbon], or the social sciences [except Hobbes, Vico, William James, and Freud]. All of these non-literary authors are either highly literary themselves or have had an immense impact on literature of their own and subsequent eras, but their inclusion and the exclusion of so many other philosophers, historians, and social scientists, indicates a major weakness of his list.
I raise this issue of what non-literature is included only because one of the most tantalizing features of Bloom’s book is what he refers to as the “independence of the aesthetic.” He seems to think or imply that the literary experience can serve as the basis for a philosophy of life. I haven’t tried to tease it out but it is an interesting idea, one that especially appealed to the German Romantic writers. (less)

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Mar 10, 2011 Christy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2011

What's fascinating to me is that even though there is all the unfortunate blather and fulmination against his critical antagonists in the academy, most of whom appear to have completely ignored him, and there is also a lamentable amount of the Because I Say So school of argument, Harold Bloom, when he actually gets down to talking about the authors he loves and why he loves them, makes a certain amount of sense. He has what would have been called, in the era he should have lived in, good taste i...more What's fascinating to me is that even though there is all the unfortunate blather and fulmination against his critical antagonists in the academy, most of whom appear to have completely ignored him, and there is also a lamentable amount of the Because I Say So school of argument, Harold Bloom, when he actually gets down to talking about the authors he loves and why he loves them, makes a certain amount of sense. He has what would have been called, in the era he should have lived in, good taste in literature. That is, he understands how a writer's mastery of complex ideas and of techniques to express them can create both pleasure and insight, i.e., real beauty. And his theory of influence, through which the artists of what he calls canonical works can be seen as choosing one another, is actually defensible, I think.

What's wrong is saying we have to choose, a la George Bush and the terrorists, between the pre-eminence of aesthetic concerns or socio-political ones, once and for all, in all discussions of literature. I reject that choice. So did some the critics I most admire, Raymond Williams, Edward Said, Hayden White and Frederic Jameson. They all loved canonical literature just as much as Harold Bloom, I venture to say. And White and Jameson actually bothered to take French critical theory on on its own ground, and in my view, showed exactly why, necessary as it may have been in a particular historical moment, it was a dead end for literary study. Bloom just rants about dreary feminists and multiculturalists who force us to read b-a-a-d books. He may have a point about the vagueness of focus in "cultural studies" programs producing bad scholarship, but he buries it in personal prejudice.

Perhaps he ought to have examined how his anxiety about his own influence both confirms his theory and makes it impossible for him to appreciate that the chaotic time with which he's so out of joint still offers up much creative possibility, and a legacy for literature. I wonder if a graphic novelist who writes a lesbian bildungsroman that's also a critical appreciation of Proust (Alison Bechtel), or television series writer David Milch's characters who bleed Shakespeare in every line, or Patti Smith's rock performance tributes to Rimbaud and William Blake would sway him at all. I doubt it. Too bad, because canonical literature is morphing before our very eyes. Far from dying out, it's the many-headed hydra, and it's popping up everywhere. (less)

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Dec 17, 2011 Simone rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-theory, non-fiction

In the (unlikely) event that literary theory again becomes relevant to mainstream society, or even mainstream academia for that matter, should there ever be a FOX News of theory, Harold Bloom would be the ideal candidate for the role of anchor.

The Western Canon is just so antiquated and conservative, in the very worst way. It's as if one's great-grandfather is lecturing from beyond the grave. For instance:

Finding myself now surrounded by professors of hip-hop; by clones of Gallic-Germanic theory...more In the (unlikely) event that literary theory again becomes relevant to mainstream society, or even mainstream academia for that matter, should there ever be a FOX News of theory, Harold Bloom would be the ideal candidate for the role of anchor.

The Western Canon is just so antiquated and conservative, in the very worst way. It's as if one's great-grandfather is lecturing from beyond the grave. For instance:

Finding myself now surrounded by professors of hip-hop; by clones of Gallic-Germanic theory; by ideologues of gender and of various sexual persuasions; by multiculturalists unlimited, I realize that the Balkanization of literary studies is irreversible.

The entire book reeks of racism and sexism, and, to clarify, that is not an attack on the traditional canon, but rather an attack on Bloom's defense of it. "The School of Resentment," as Bloom deems them, is comprised of all people or groups that dare to so much as question the legitimacy of the traditional canon. If nothing else, The Western Canon is an angry book. This is no poetic elegy to the slow death of the canon, but an ideological tirade directed at the aforementioned "School of Resentment."

It's a shame that Bloom's anger so dominates the book, too. Despite disagreeing with all of his ideological views, particularly those concerned with his condemnation of feminist and post-colonial theory, there is no doubt that Bloom is intelligent and possesses a nearly encyclopedia knowledge of the traditional canon. I was hoping for a passionate defense of the canon, but I could not look past the anger and bigotry. I've read that other critics can tire of his Shakespeare-worship, and this book certainly supports that worship, but ultimately I find a lot of his chain-of-influence arguments compelling.

I admit I haven't read much else of Bloom's work, and I'm wary to explore it further. His work is compelling in its comprehensiveness, but his conservatism, and more significantly, his anger towards all those who do not share his ideology, is off-putting. I don't expect I'll be reading any more of his work in the future. (less)

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Jun 11, 2012 Don rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book was great! Nothing in it will surprise a reader familiar with Bloom. Without any equivocation he makes a case for Shakespeare as the greatest writer of all time and center of the Canon, and along the way he lays into the "school of resentment" (aka feminist/marxist/deconstructionist critics and academics) who deny the almighty AESTHETICS.

Some of the chapters were uneven, but the good chapters far outweigh the mediocre ones. The best part about this book is that it will get you excited...more

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Mar 08, 2012 Christian rated it 4 of 5 stars

Bloom's view of canonicity is conservative and unsurprising, and his conception of the evolution of the canon (or the canon as he sees it) is agonistic. This does not prevent him from reasoning that with the rise of Marxist thought, deconstructive thought, and various isms (feminism principally), and with TV, video and rap music, the canon probably will not survive. He identifies in contemporary seats of learning -- i.e. the university -- nurture and tuition in what he calls the 'School of Resen...more

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Feb 16, 2013 Christina rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: western-canon

I came across this tome during my children's homeschooling years and it proved useful in our literary selections during their highschool years. This is just one in a cadre of classical literature guides and the procurement of western canon. Anyone homeschooling according to the Trivium, or even Adler's Paideia or Hirsch's Core Knowledge Sequence, will find this text to be a welcome assist. If you merely want a college prepatory reading list, Bloom's text will well inform your choices.

Harold Bloo...more

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Jun 25, 2011 Wendell Jones rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The writer, Harold Bloom, is considered the preeminent critic of our time. He has written and edited a prodigious amount of works. In this book he lists and discusses twenty-six writers he considers to be the greatest writers of the Western World. At the center of the canon he places Shakespeare. He maintains that Shakespeare invented character. He also says that all writers coming after Shakespeare have to come to grips with him. Some, Tolstoy and Freud included, rebel against him. Goethe, Ibse...more

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Apr 02, 2012 Joy rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Bloom's writing style is overly lofty, and extremely hard to read. As someone who has read many of the books he has listed as important for reading, I'm not opposed to his choices of texts. What I am opposed to is his idea that everyone needs to read them, and that this generation is lacking because values are changing. He seems to think that new forms of text are going to eliminate the older literature that he views as more important. On the contrary, I think the newer texts often use elements...more

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Dec 06, 2012 Jihm rated it 3 of 5 stars

No, I didn't read all 500+ pages of this critical analysis of the Western Canon, but what I did read was thought-provoking and, I believe, beneficial to any literature major or avid reader of the classics.

I paid most attention to Bloom's introduction and conclusion, which expound his ideas about poetics and the current state of literary criticism.

Though I disagree with his opposition to interdisciplinary criticism (feminist, Marxist, psychoanalytic, etc.), he does present a damn good argument....more

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Jun 28, 2009 Christy added it · review of another edition

At last - it is finished. What a tome! My favorite sections being the introduction, the chapter on Shakespeare, the one including Jane Austen, the chapter on Virginia Woolf, and the conclusion. Probably because they're the authors I'm most familiar with...but a good introduction to and overview of Dante, Cervantes, Milton, Goethe, George Eliot, etc.

Bloom seems to have read every notable book in print, perhaps the result of a precocious childhood and an extending age and the ability to have a car...more

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Aug 04, 2010 Rob rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: criticism, non-fiction, read-in-2010

Harold Bloom is like your ornery grandpa: he's very old-fashioned, and goes on uncomfortable rants about the blacks and the feminists a lot, but if you keep listening you realize that he has real wisdom and an experience that you can learn something from. You always complain about him when he's not around, but when he's gone*, you wish you had stayed in his world a little longer.

*This is referring to the end of the book, not Bloom's undoubtedly iminent death by rage-induced heart attack. What I...more

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Dec 20, 2011 Carlos rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Bloom defiende una idea de la literatura que puedo apreciar, pero no defender. Lo hace con unos argumentos a ratos brillantes pero que en general caen en un fundamentalismo estético que a él le puede servir. Dudo que ese elitismo se pueda compartir sin egocentrismo, igual que dudo de que Shakespeare tuviera pretensión alguna o haya tenido esa mágica influencia sobre toda literatura 'excelente' en cualquier idioma.

Este es un libro interesante por lo que dice del autor, del oficio de crítico y la...more

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Apr 24, 2013 Tiffany rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Mr. Bloom's canon is a laundry list of big, boring books, written by imperialists--all men, plus maybe Jane or Emily--thank GOD the white men have those broads; they rock no boats--who have shaped our world and are pretty much responsible for the mess we're currently in. I wanted to like this book because he reminds us literature is a monument to humanity, which I deeply believe. Helas! his writing is as tedious and Burkean as most of the books he gasses on about. He managed to make Shakespeare-...more

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MJ Boone I'm not a fan of Bloom myself based on what I've read of his, not at all in fact. I'm with Borges when it comes to literary criticism.

But I can tell y...more
updated May 24, 2013 02:15am

Tiffany You make great points (especially about Borges) and I admit to giving free rein to my own passionate dislike of him as a critic. Your qualms are also...more
May 24, 2013 04:56am

MJ Boone As for George Eliot, I haven't read her (not being a huge fan of pre-20th century literature), so you very well may be spot on! I just mentioned her b...more
updated May 24, 2013 06:26am

Feb 23, 2009 Elena rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: criticisms, in-bookshelf

To some Harold Bloom might just be a pompous critic, but if I can have an ounce of literary knowledge that this man has in his brain, I would consider myself lucky. I admire Harold Bloom, which makes me a bit bias when reading any of his criticisms. Unfortunately, I cannot help to admire a man that has an extensive knowledge of literature. Literature is my passion and it his unending passion to read and to celebrate the art and styles of literature, which I cannot overlook.

The School of Resentm...more

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Dec 04, 2009 David rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book has had mixed reviews, but I thought it was relatively awesome in comparison with some others. It's just an overview of Western literature from its beginnings up to Joyce, etc.

I hate to sound like a university professor, but these are the sorts of things I've been reading for the past thirty years. Besides, nobody's listening. This is an awesome book club. Such vibrant exchange of ideas, such rapier-sharp critique, such a rich and rewarding cultural exploration, such electrifying and...more

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Oct 19, 2011 James rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-criticism, non-fiction

One of the most useful works of non-fiction to be published in recent decades, written by the sturdy Yale professor Harold Bloom. Camille Paglia said that this work was as much about Bloom himself as it was about the "best that has been written"(one of many phrases that Bloom is quite of fond of using again and again), and this is certainty true, as the irascible scholar's personality comes through in every supple sentence. If there is a flaw in Bloom's work, it is repetition, as the reader is b...more

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Feb 17, 2011 Clark rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Regarding the first review of this book:" In the end, Bloom probably won't further the study of literature at the university level, but books like the Western Canon will continue to intrigue weekend readers: men and women with strong backgrounds in literature who want to continue to read classic works, not because they want to discover political meanings in them, but because they enjoy them and they want to enjoy them more. Blooms "The Western Canon" is a roadmap for these literary "weekend warr...more

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Dec 26, 2008 Gustav Klimt rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Bloom attacks the usual Conservative straw-men of "identity politics" and "ideological criticism," clearly without having taken the time to understand the current state of literary studies. The guy has a photographic memory, which makes him a a great storage house of cross references, but his critical apparatus is primitive to say the least.

I have no problem with acknowledging a canon, but it is hardly a fixed and monolithic structure. Bloom's efforts to tell us what we should be reading amount...more

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Jan 07, 2009 Scott rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A thorough and thoughtful examination of literary works that have been proven as influential to mainstream thought and major courses of Western literature. Becomes problematic because Bloom tries to assert the primacy of these works, when a wider read of history (you know, aside from the Great Man Theory view of the world) shows that while, yes, there are central poles to which we can attach tethers, but those are merely in the middle of a vast field, and may not relate to the greater body of wo...more

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Mar 01, 2009 Brent Jones rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Harold Bloom is an author you become addicted to. His insight into literary influence is a template that can be used over and over in looking at the great writers he profiles. He does have his own bias and he may border on overdoing his focus on Shakespeare. When he tells us right in the preface that there "is no cognitive originality in the whole history of philosophy comparable to Shakespeare's" it seems like he has gone too far. Even so he makes a good case for what is worth reading and tells...more

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About Harold Bloom

Bloom is a literary critic, and currently a Sterling Professor of the Humanities at Yale University. Since the publication of his first book in 1959, Bloom has written more than 20 books of literary criticism, several books discussing religion, and one novel. He has edited hundreds of anthologies.

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